


Q de Grâce

by Syd_of_the_Funny_Hat



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Sorry about the indents and other formatting oddities, Time Travel, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 157,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syd_of_the_Funny_Hat/pseuds/Syd_of_the_Funny_Hat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ninety-four.  The cars were of too modern a design to be 1894, as were the majority of the buildings he had seen.  On the other hand, nothing was so modern as to imply a Los Angeles rebuilt inland after the 2047 quake, something that had not happened in his universe’s timeline.  Which left him with two choices: either he was no longer in his own universe, or he was.  In 1994.</p>
<p><em>If I pass my test, will I be sent back to my own time?</em>   Data had no way to know.  He did, however, know better than to assume anything.</p>
<p>Especially when Q was involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> As we all know, I do not own _Star Trek_ or any of its characters, in any iteration or combination. This work is posted with no intention of making a profit--I just like to play here.

1

 

He woke.

Three pairs of eyes stared down at him, framing blue sky darkening and cloud-streaked.  The pavement under his back felt cracked and uneven.  Old brick walls, covered with tattered signs and mottled layers of paint, soared above his head and rose up a few meters from his feet.

The smell, a rich amalgam of hydrocarbons, alcohol, urine, stagnant water, animal waste, and long-unwashed bodies, was more than enough to make anyone gag.

Save that, being an android, nothing could make him gag.

Data put all the information together and concluded he lay in an alley.  A filthy alley, at that.  Judging from the noise level, he was between two busy thoroughfares.  The traffic sounds reminded him of automobiles _,_ but they existed only in museums, or on the holodeck.

“Hey, man, where’d ya get the fancy sweats?”  Data focused on the one who spoke, a human male, his age uncertain due to the grime and matted beard covering his face.  His gaze flicked from him to the others as he searched for memories of them, and found none.

The man’s comment drew laughs from his friends.  “Yeah, they real fancy, ain’t they?” said the second, who differed from the first only in being darker-skinned and less hirsute.

“Ooh, gold face paint!” said the third, an equally unkempt female.  “You late fer Halloween?”

All wore cast-offs as disreputable as any Data had seen, real or holo-generated.  The dark man and the woman wore grubby knitted caps, while the bearded man sported a stained fedora.

They were all human, and they all spoke English, though their usage was ungrammatical and flavored with slang.  What had the first one said, “fancy sweats”?  At only thirteen-point-eight degrees Celsius, the climate did not promote sweating, fancy or otherwise.

Their hands, patting his uniform, reclaimed his full attention.  The one in the fedora asked, “Got no pockets, man?  Where’d’ya stash yer cash?”

“We a little down on our luck, man,” the dark man chimed in, “can ya share wit’ th’ needy?”  They laughed and began searching the android in earnest.

Because he had lain silent and unmoving, they assumed him sick or injured or drugged.  And as had been humanity’s way for uncounted centuries, there were always some ready to prey on those weaker than themselves.  They prodded him with rough fingers, but he had no pockets, no wallet, no money they could find.  Their impatience turned to frustration and anger.

Data ran a quick self-diagnostic and, finding nothing amiss, sat up.  They flinched back.  When he only looked at them, they pulled him to his feet and shoved him against a wall.  The men held him while the woman continued the search.

“Computer, end program.”  The figures continued their respective pursuits.  “Computer, exit.”  He had not really believed himself in the holodeck, for he perceived no black-and-gold grid behind the images.  But if he was not on the holodeck…

“Hey, it talks after all,” the bearded one said.  He was twelve centimeters taller than the android, and might weigh one hundred eighteen kilograms to the android’s one hundred.

_Then this is real.  And they must not proceed, if they should find my “off” switch_ —“If you will tell me what you require, I will attempt to assist you.”

The woman replied, “Yeah, and fancy talk, too.  Goes with th’ sweats!”

“What we ree-quire,” the dark one said in an exaggerated drawl, “is fy-nan-shul aid.  Found anything?” he asked her, and she shook her head.

She seemed to lose interest in the original purpose of her search.  Now she just poked and pinched Data in a vicious—and highly personal—way.  He raised one eyebrow.  “Aw, c’mon, mister,” she said with a yellow, gap-toothed smile, “my pals won’t peek!”  Their laughter had an ugly edge.

Data looked from one to another, trying to decide how best to handle the situation; were he on an undeveloped world, he could not risk cultural contamination by revealing his android nature.  “I have no financial aid to offer you, since I have no money,” he said at last.

“Now that’s a real shame,” the bearded man observed.  “I guess we’ll just hafta see what we can get fer that pretty pin you got on.”  He reached for Data’s communicator.

“Hey!” came a shout from the closer end of the alley.  “Let him alone!”

 

 

At thirty-six hours plus, it had been one hell of a day.

She had reported for work the day before at her usual time, four-thirty a.m.  After finishing her regulars, Doc told her to help with the FX makeup for the alien fight scene.

Things got more and more hectic.  The sound stages leaked and the rain gummed up the equipment to cause lengthy delays in the day’s shooting.  Then one of the guest stars turned claustrophobic.  Getting him out of his full-face prosthetics and into less confining appliances took another hour.  And he had to be the most visible alien, too, so no shooting around _him_.

But Doc had designed a new makeup while she and Kat removed the old one.  That man was a miracle-worker, no doubt about it, she thought with a smile of admiration.  And he had to be, too, as fast as things had changed during the day.  If it hadn’t been a season finale two weeks behind schedule, everybody would have been much calmer.

The director finally said the shoot would have to go long and called a dinner break.  She drove home to feed her zoo and raced back to the studio with a sandwich she ate as she drove.

Some of the “suits” talked to the director during dinner and said to finish the shoot, period.  Nobody was thrilled, but at least they’d be making overtime rates.

Another six hours’ shooting, another hour off, and the set filled with people trying to catnap or grab a bite to eat, or both—Ted sleeping in his pizza gave them a much-needed laugh.  More touch-ups, more shooting, another run home to feed the zoo, shower and change.

But they were finished!  The only things left were location shots and a couple of re-shoots.  Doc said if she got the equipment ready for the next day’s crew, she could skip both.  Which she did, and escaped before he changed his mind.  Unless he called, she was free until Monday.

In the meantime, she could indulge in one of her favorite vices.

She stood in a bookstore, a pile of choice specimens held in one arm, another possibility in hand, and three special orders at the front desk.  Her tastes ran the gamut from work-related nonfiction to sci-fi to mysteries to, on occasion, a little tasteful erotica.

A huge yawn brought her introspection to a halt, so she carried her books to the counter.

The clerk, a handsome dark-haired man with a diamond stud in one ear, grinned when she walked up.  “Hi, hon,” he said, “long time no see!  Do I get a kiss for Easter?”  She set the books down and met him halfway across the counter with a bone-crushing hug and a warm, chaste kiss.  He licked his lips.  “Yum, better than chocolate bunnies!”

She rolled her eyes.  “Easter’s a week away, Len, and you’re diabetic—what do you know from chocolate bunnies?  How’s Joe?”

Len’s smile dimmed a little.  “Oh, well, I thought love had bloomed at last, but it turned out to be crabgrass again!”  He found her special orders and started ringing up her purchases.

“Let’s see,” he said.  “Heinlein, Whitman, MacLeod, the Mayan _Popol Vuh_ , God, you read the weirdest stuff.  ‘How to Live Well on Ten Dollars a Day’.”  He winked at her.  “Trust me, that one’s _really_ fiction!  Oh, and what have we here?”  Len’s grin turned devilish as she blushed.  “Anaïs Nin?  Sir Richard Burton’s unexpurgated ‘Kama Sutra’?”  He shook his head.  “Girl, we need to find you a man!”

“You always say that,” she laughed, “but you never seem to meet any who are my…type.”  He mimed being stabbed through the heart as she unfolded a knapsack and bagged her books.

“Anyway,” she pointed out, “thirteen to eighteen hours a day at work, maybe six days a week, doesn’t leave much room for romance.”  Then she fluttered her lashes and said in a syrupy drawl, “But I appreciate the thought, sugar.  If you’re not careful, I just might propose!”

As he roared with laughter and handed her the bill, she wondered why she could always flirt so well with men who had absolutely no romantic interest in her.  She wrote the check, kissed him good-bye, and shouldered the knapsack for the walk to her car.

Said vehicle was across the street and four or five blocks away.  _And I just bought twenty-two pounds of prime reading material._   She hitched the knapsack a little higher and glanced at the sky.  At least it wasn’t raining _._

Two blocks to go.  She approached an alley and slowed down.  Something was happening.  A calm voice said, “I have no financial aid,” then was drowned by traffic.

Peeking around the corner, she saw three street people, one of whom was very big, holding an actor in costume and makeup against the wall, raising a fist—

“Hey!  Let him alone!”  The street people stared as she charged into the alley.

 

 

Data used the chance.

Up came his left hand, heel forward, to strike the bearded man hard on the chin.  The fedora flew off as his head snapped back and he crumpled, unconscious.  A half turn left and the android’s right hand jabbed the dark man in the solar plexus, then came down on the back of his neck.  The woman retreated but faced him, brandishing a knife.  He prepared to kick it away.

He was too late.  A large canvas bag connected with the woman’s jaw.  The knife dropped from her nerveless hand and, with a puzzled look, she slid down the wall to the unclean pavement.

A hand grabbed Data’s elbow and turned him around.  “Well, are you planning to stand here all night, or would you rather leave?”

He faced a pair of darkly lashed eyes, one hazel-brown, the other hazel-green, set in a square face, the brows arched in a question.  Beneath the eyes were a slim, straight nose and well-shaped mouth.  Dark chestnut bangs brushed the eyebrows, and wisps escaped from a long French braid.

Based on his quick appraisal, it looked like a trustworthy face, so he replied, “I believe an expeditious retreat is advisable.”

“Come on, then,” she said, and pulled him toward the sidewalk.  One man stirred, so she let go and ran.  Yes, he noted as they turned the corner, there were automobiles in plenty here.

The android spared a glance behind them and saw the bearded man and the woman looking up and down the street.  The woman saw them and tugged at the man.

“They are giving chase,” Data informed his rescuer.

“Great.  Well, keep your fingers crossed there’s no cop around with a quota to fill.”  The sun was just setting and traffic had increased considerably.  Taking his elbow again, she said, “Here goes nothing!” and pulled the wary Data into the street with her.

Irate horns blasted around them.  She ignored them and worked her way across the street.  Data, trying to take in all the sights, ran into her when she halted beside a blue sedan.  “Get in,” she said, and nodded toward the vehicle’s other side.

More horns blared.  Data saw the cause over her shoulder.  “They have entered the thoroughfare.”  His companion cursed under her breath.  The knapsack kept hitting her arm and she missed the keypad three times in a row.  She shrugged the sack from her shoulders, caught his eye across the car and tossed it to him.  Without the distraction, she punched in her access code and had the car unlocked in a second, her door open in another.

As soon as he got in, she flipped a switch to lock their doors, released the security clamp from the steering device between the seats, and thumbed the ignition pad.  Motor humming to life, the car slipped into a gap in traffic and sped off, their pursuers still half a street away.

She fastened her safety belt at the first stoplight.  Data copied her action and resettled the bag.  “Could you hand me my glasses from the glove compartment?” she asked.

What, and where, was a glove compartment?  He studied the area around him and saw the hatch in the backswept surface near his knees.  It fell open at his touch, spilling several things onto his lap and the floor.  Reaching around the bag in his lap, he retrieved her glasses from the mess.

“I should have warned you,” she apologized, chuckling as she settled the visual aids in place.  “Mom always says my glove compartment is worse than Fibber McGee’s closet!”

She drove several blocks before turning into a lighted area in front of a building labeled a “supermarket”.  She pulled into an open space under a tall lamp and thumbed the engine off.  They looked at each other, Data finishing his study of her as she began hers of him.

She did have a good face, aesthetic if not classically beautiful.  She wore a pair of blue pants, a somewhat wilted white shirt with blue windowpane checks and a short red leather jacket.  No jewelry except a discreet pair of gold earrings and a wristwatch.

He had noticed she was one-point-seven meters tall to his own one-point-eight, or five feet, eight inches in English units, and had a figure curved in what human males might call “all the right places,” though not emphatically so.  Her hand on his elbow had been strong and she used the steering joystick with skill.  Tapered fingers ended in nails of an elegant if utilitarian length.

All in all, she appeared a normal human female, slightly more attractive than average on a human scale, a type his friends and crewmates would no doubt notice.

For her part, he fascinated her.  His brown hair had reddish highlights and was neatly cut.  She doubted it was his, though; the hairline was so stark it had to be a wig.  Nicely shaped eyebrows, straight with a little downward curve at the end, a nose of great character and strength (just the kind she liked), a good mouth if a shade uneven.

Amber contacts hid the color of his eyes, but their expression, while curious, was pleasant.  And he was, in her opinion, pretty well put together.  Running to the car left her panting, he never even broke a sweat.  She liked his hands, too.  They looked like he could do delicate work or manual labor with equal ease.

Speaking of hands, she extended her own.  “Hi.  Davida Hutchins.  You okay?”

“Yes, Miss Hutchins,” he replied as they shook hands.  “My name is Data.”  It was out before he knew it.  He should, perhaps, have chosen a pseudonym.  Data sighed.  “Are you well?”

“Just Data?  No last name?”  He debated a moment, but shook his head.  She smiled.  He had a good handshake, friendly but no-nonsense.  “Well, Mr. Data, I’m a little shaky, I’ve never belted a mugger before, but I’m fine.  Mind if I ask why you were in an alley in that outfit?”

“No, I do not mind.”

“Literal, aren’t you?” she grinned at his silence.  “Okay, why were you in an alley in that outfit?”

“The alley was not my intended destination.  I came there by accident.”  Which was, from his point of view, true.

“I’ll bet!  How’d the audition go?”

“Audition?”  For a moment her meaning eluded him.  Then he looked down at his uniform and realized she must think it a costume.  “Oh.  I have not been cast in a part.”

“Sorry to hear it.  You look good, though.  Who did your makeup?  It’s a fine job.”  Now that they had traded names and handshakes, she felt herself entitled to study him with a more critical eye.  Taking his chin between her thumb and forefinger, she turned his head from side to side, smiling at his wary look.  “Hell of a good job,” she repeated. “Did you do it yourself?  If you can’t land a part, I may be able to help you find jobs doing makeup.”

“My father is responsible for my appearance.”  It was the literal truth.  Data had found several pictures of Soong during his research after discovering Lore.  While he never found any showing the scientist at precisely the age Data resembled, his features were unmistakably his father’s.  And Soong was responsible for his unique pigmentation.

“Does your dad want a job?  He does good work!”

“My father is not here.”  He had died last year on a deserted planet in the Terlina system.

Davida sank back against her door in shock.  “You’re from out of town?  And you came in _that_ way?”  She looked him up and down.  “You’ve got nerve, anyway.”  She paused a second.  “Well, I have to get going.  Where can I drop you?”

Data appeared puzzled.  “I do not believe you could lift me, and I fail to understand why you would wish to drop me in the first place.”

She smothered a laugh.  “I meant, may I give you a ride to your hotel?  Or are you staying with a friend?”

“I have no friends here, nor accommodations.”  He had no idea how very alone he looked. 

“Then where’d you leave your luggage?”

Data shook his head.  He prepared to leave, because he assumed she would soon ask questions for which he had no answers she would believe.  Her reaction surprised him.

“You mean you came into town dressed for an audition, without a room, and the airline lost your luggage, you didn’t get the part, and you got mugged, too?”  She snorted in disgust.  “Gee, Los Angeles has sure been good to you!”

Los Angeles?  Then he was on Earth.  Except Los Angeles, along with much of the Southern California coast, had sunk into the sea after the Hermosa Quake of 2047 _._   Was he in his own Earth’s distant past?  In a parallel universe?  Or on a contemporary planet displaying a close congruence to Earth via Hodgkins’s Law?  He stared out the front window, thinking.

Davida watched him stare.  What was she going to do with him?  Leave him on the street with no money and no place to stay?  No, of course not, but putting him up at a hotel was out of the question.  Wasn’t it?  Then she glanced at the bag he still held.  If she had money for books, she could rent him a room.  The stumbling block to that idea was his appearance.

A single sigh escaped her and Data turned.  His eyes decided her course.  They reminded her of her youngest, a lost kitten if there ever was one.  She sighed again.  _I hope I’m not going to regret this._ “I guess you’d better stay with me, at least until the airline finds your luggage.  Which, the way your luck seems to be going, will probably be at the next solar eclipse.”

“Thank you, Miss Hutchins, but I do not wish to trouble you.”

“It’s no trouble, Mr. Data, really.  Besides, where else can you go?”

Circumstances forced him to admit she had a point. “Very well.  I accept.”

She smiled again, her sympathy clear.  “Good.  Now, we’ve got about a forty-minute trip.  Let me get that out of your way,” she offered, and wrestled the bag into the back seat.  “There’s a button on your right that reclines the seat, why not relax?”

“You are very kind, Miss Hutchins.”  Data tilted the seat a few centimeters and closed his eyes enough to feign sleep.  He had been here barely an hour but had much to absorb.

And he needed to know the time frame.  He could, he supposed, simply turn to his companion and ask _when_ he was.

On second thought, that was a most foolhardy idea.

The android watched the passing scenery through eyelids narrowed to slits, trying to narrow down the year.  The metallic plates on the other vehicles gave him the clue.  All carried a numeric sticker; while the number “95” appeared occasionally, it was most often “94.”

Ninety-four.  The cars were of too modern a design to be 1894, as were the majority of the buildings he had seen.  On the other hand, nothing was so modern as to imply a Los Angeles rebuilt inland after the 2047 quake, something that had not happened in his universe’s timeline.  Which left him with two choices: either he was not longer in his own universe, or he was.  In 1994.

  _If I pass my test, will I be sent back to my own time?_   Data had no way to know.  He did, however, know better than to assume anything.

Especially when Q was involved.

 


	2. Chapter 2

2

 

Federation Starship NCC-1701-D, U.S.S. Enterprise

Second officer’s personal log, stardate 45594.0. _Worf’s injuries have been treated using Dr. Russell’s experimental process. Although there were difficulties during the procedure, it was an overall success. I am relieved to know I will not lose my friend._

_Jenna may be transferring off the Enterprise. Since the termination of our romantic liaison, she is no longer comfortable in my presence. I believe she now feels it was foolish to pursue such a relationship with an artificial life-form. She even disassociated herself from the woodwind ensemble, despite the marked improvement in her playing ability._

_When Jenna said she was considering a transfer request, she looked…relieved. I still do not understand. She could behave cordially to Jeff Arton within two months after their affair ended, yet she and I ceased to be a couple six months ago._

“Pause entry,” Data said.

Their liaison lasted such a short time it seemed illogical for her to be so disturbed by its failure. Though Data had never wished to hurt her, he could find no behavior of his that, if changed or eliminated, could have produced the much sought-after happy ending. It was one of many things he might never understand. Recent experiences, his friends’ as well as his own, started him on an analysis of humanity’s inconsistency.

Dr. Toby Russell was a brilliant neurogeneticist, but she viewed patients as experimental objects, nothing more. By testing new procedures when a known method showed equal or greater promise of success, Russell’s research cost lives, contrary to the methods of the ship’s CMO, who did not fear innovation but would use an untested procedure only as a last resort.

If a doctor was pledged, first, to do no harm, how could Russell act as she did? And yet, had not her violation of her medical oath led directly to Worf’s being alive and physically whole?

Then there was Dr. Kila Marr. She had first accused Data of collaborating, like Lore, with the Crystalline Entity, and thought Data just as evil. She relented after she came to view him as her only link to her son Rennie, killed along with the other colonists on Omicron Theta.

That perception grew until she committed murder for Rennie’s sake. And it had indeed been murder: The Crystalline Entity was sentient, beyond doubt. Lore could communicate with it, and it had been trying to communicate with them when Marr destroyed it.

Captain Benjamin Maxwell was a decorated Starfleet officer who also sacrificed his career to old emotional scars, those left by his family’s death in a Cardassian attack.

Ishara Yar disguised treachery with a smile. He opened a drawer and took out the amber proximity detector Crusher had removed from Ishara; a reminder of friendship, and betrayal. Data traced a translucent edge with one fingertip, then put it away. He still wished Ishara had stayed on the Enterprise, even though she would have killed him.

His own father had inadvertently caused the death of a planet.

Noonien Soong had tried to program Lore with human emotions, but did not know exactly how. No examples existed; no other race in the galaxy had created viable androids except the failed civilization on Exo III, and those had no emotions. Soong had tried, and failed. True, Lore had emotions, but they twisted into only those most likely to cause tragedy. Lore had contacted the Crystalline Entity, and gave it the Omicron Theta colony before his disassembly.

And then, as they inevitably did, Data’s memories turned to Tasha Yar.

She had been an honorable woman, one of strength and conviction, dedicated, good at her job, and a good friend. Except for the Tsiolkovsky incident.

While under the intoxicating influence of the “virus,” Tasha made overtures toward Data which he, under the same influence, gratified beyond her wildest expectations.

Upon being cured, her only words to him on the subject were, “It never happened.”

He wondered again what she thought he expected. Data had no notion of an ongoing physical relationship with her, and certainly never considered an exclusive commitment. While he had not, per se, taken advantage of her impaired state, his own impairment let him forget that, where the possibility for regret exists, it was often best to avoid its causative factors.

Had Data been fully himself, he would have refused Tasha’s advances because she might repent of them later. As, indeed, she had.

But the android had been as intoxicated as she, and they had done what they had done, and though he could feel no regret—or anything else—she could, and did.

They never spoke of it, but it strained their friendship for a time. At least they had reconciled before her death.

Neither of them had been at fault; the virus was the culprit. Yet Tasha seemed to hold Data responsible. “Perhaps,” he said to Spot, “it was easier to blame me than accept the blame herself. But blame should never have entered the question.”

He sighed. The cat pricked one ear toward him. “I suppose I will never understand. Even humanity’s simplest actions seem fraught with a multitude of underlying, even contradictory, motivations. Why do good people behave badly, or bring about evil by their actions?”

A blinding white light flared and faded. “Maybe it’s because humans are innately evil.”

“I do not accept that hypothesis, Q,” Data said to the entity sitting across from him.

Indolent, Q hooked one leg over the arm of the chair, fingers steepled before him. “Why not, O Professor of Humanities? Your musings have led to that conclusion, haven’t they?

“That whatever their stated beliefs, whatever oaths they take, whatever pitiful standards they swear to uphold, the microscopic veneer of humans’ civilized behavior covers a seething morass of contradiction, selfishness, self-interest and evils of the worst kind? That, morally speaking, they’re no more advanced than the protoplasmic slime which is their ultimate ancestor?”

Data cocked his head. “Your own experiences with us tend to disprove that.”

“Pah.” Q dismissed the idea with a wave. “Special circumstances. The captain and crew knew they were being tested, so they were on their best behavior. Contemptible though it was.”

“Then your tests of us have been invalid,” the android stated. His curiosity grew. “Is that why you were expelled from the Continuum two years ago? For the invalid testing of humanity?”

“Past history is not the issue, android,” came the sharp retort. “Not mine, anyway. But you….” Q’s dark eyes held the android’s golden ones. “What do you think of people, of the humans you strive so diligently to emulate? Honestly?”

“I believe the vast majority of humans are good. It is true that some choose evil, but experience has given me faith in the basic goodness of humanity.”

“I think your experiences are lacking,” Q sneered, “and your faith misplaced. But to continue: do you think humanity has always been good, or is it a recent trend?”

“There is no simple answer.” He ignored Q’s mocking look. “History records what happened without necessarily providing clues to the reasons. It is possible humans have become more good over time, but even that view implies the seed was always present.”

Q sat up in his chair and folded his arms on Data’s console. His expression was almost innocent as he asked, “What about during times of conflict? What were your hypothetical ‘good people’ doing while the Maya slaughtered thousands as religious sacrifices, or while Roman armies enslaved half the world? Or during that charming period known as the Inquisition, when more thousands were slain to appease arrogant fools who dared think they spoke for God?”

His expression hardened. “What about the wars, Data? How many millions died while the ‘good people’ did nothing? How many World Wars, how many lesser ones? Did they not hear the cries of those whose blood has drenched the very earth that sustained them?

“And the interplanetary conflicts, the multitudes who have died in battle with the Romulans, the Klingons, the Borg, the Cardassians—”

“You were responsible for our initial contact with the Borg, Q,” Data reminded him, “in the course of what might best be described as a fit of pique.”

“—The Romulans, the Klingons, the Cardassians,” Q repeated without missing a beat. “Why, Data! Human history is a veritable bloodbath! Where were these good people then?”

Images formed in Data’s mind, of things he had seen, or read. The carnage of war. The tragedy of narrow-mindedness. The disasters of xenophobia on a planetary, then interplanetary, scale. Evil incarnate seemed to spring from the images, like Armus striking Tasha down….

The darkness of humanity was undeniable. The android began to doubt.

Then he saw lights, mere sparks in the threatening darkness. For every Hitler, there seemed to be a Gandhi. For every Colonel Green, an Edith Keeler. And though it often happened that the light of a Gandhi was extinguished, smaller flickers grew in its stead. The body died, but the idea, the ideal, lived.

As Data’s mind moved through the fabric of human history, the points of brightness steadied, became threads of light, growing more often than fading, spreading farther after each recession, surging forward to overwhelm the dark.

“I never claimed humanity was perfect. It is not. It is a group of fallible individuals.”

Nor were good and evil absolute, he said; what was good in one historical period might be evil in others. “But even this depends on the individual who interprets and acts on the definitions of her time. Even with the best of intentions, evil can be done through inappropriate action, or lack of action. I do not think acknowledging this invalidates my original statement.”

Q’s grin exuded venom. “Really? Would you care to test that?”

Data had intrigued Q for a long time. A living machine, one whose selflessness saved Q from the Calamarain, who wished to be human but refused the gift of humanity from Riker-as-Q, even from Q himself—these made Data as interesting to Q as Picard and Riker.

And now the time had come for that interest to take a more concrete expression, as it had with the other two. The entity repeated his question.

The android’s brows rose, as did his suspicions. “What are you suggesting, Q?”

“That you test your hypothesis regarding the goodness of humanity. Doesn’t testing usually follow the posing of a theory, isn’t that considered good science?”

“You are correct.” Data paused to stroke Spot’s fur to the feline’s audible pleasure. He looked at Q, who stood with his arms braced on the console. “What do you propose?”

The alien looked all too satisfied. “Simple. I’ll send you somewhere, you look for the good in humanity.” His sarcasm flared. “If you find it, you win, and all’s well. If you fail…” A faint rumble of thunder surrounded Q. “If you fail, Data, you come to the Continuum with me and tell the other Q that, as an impartial observer, you find humanity has no redeeming value.”

Q’s desire to confine humans to their present sectors of the galaxy was no secret; he had wanted it since the _Enterprise_ ’s first encounter with him. If Data failed the test, he would doom humanity to an existence hemmed in by the powers of the Continuum.

He should, therefore, refuse it.

Though Q never claimed omniscience among his other powers, it seemed he read Data’s mind. “What’s the matter, having second thoughts? Giving up already?” He smiled again, and anyone else would have shuddered at the sight. “To decline to test your theory is tantamount to admitting it’s wrong, wouldn’t you say? Why not just come with me, spare yourself the effort?”

Data knew he had no choice. “I accept your terms, Q. When will my test begin?”

“How about…now?” Q snapped his fingers with a flourish and the android vanished.

Spot jumped to Data’s chair, nosed around, and jumped back to the console to pace. Then she sat down facing the entity. Tail twitching, she stared at him and mewed.

“Oh, don’t worry, you stupid creature. He’s fine. For the moment.”

Suddenly the cat let out a snarl and launched herself at him, claws and fangs bared. He flashed behind her and said, “Bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?” The cat landed, scrambled around and leaped again, to be caught and held by Q with surprising gentleness. “My quarrel is with them, not you. At least you have no delusions of grandeur.” His voice soothed Spot’s pounding heart and she mewed once more. “No, creature. He must live with the choice he has made, whatever it brings.” He put her, gently, on the console, and disappeared.

Spot howled in frustration.

And thus came Data to waken in an alley with no way to know where he was, or how long he had been there, or how to go about beginning his test.

He decided it had begun when he agreed to it, and so far, it did not look promising. Still feigning sleep, he turned his head a fraction toward the stranger who had come to his rescue.

She drove well, eyes flicking between the street and the strategically placed mirrors. Every now and then she looked at him with a thoughtful grin, humming under her breath.

The time period was a reasonably interesting one, at any rate, and he knew the history of it in its broadest strokes. Some of the fine points, too, had survived to his time, but there were many gaps. Data found himself anticipating filling them.

The car, which had spent quite some time turning sharp corners and climbing, moved up another short slope and stopped. Davida reached past him and put her glasses back in the glove compartment. She set the parking brake and undid the belt as she opened her door. She saw Data stir and said, “You have another couple of minutes, relax.”

He opened his eyes wider and watched her unlock a gate barring their way. A large black dog greeted her, and she patted the animal as she disappeared from view. A light came on and, returning to the car, she drove into a walled yard. “Welcome to Casa Hutchins, Mr. Data,” she said as she got out and grabbed the knapsack . “It’s not swank, but it’s home. And our timing is perfect!” she exclaimed as a flurry of raindrops spattered her jacket. Pointing the android toward a covered patio, Davida darted into the rain to shut the gate, then bowed him in the back door, telling him to go left at the hall.

The door opened onto a laundry room/pantry. Data turned as she directed and found a spacious kitchen, work area at one end, bow window with a cushioned window seat and a half-moon table at the other. Davida dropped her bags on the window seat and invited Data to sit down as she hung her jacket in the laundry room. A door opened there.

The sound brought a clattering, thumping scramble toward the kitchen. Five cats, no two alike, slid to a stop beside a counter while she carried in several dishes. The cats purred, meowed—loudly—and paced at her feet to twine their tails around her ankles.

The business of feeding time she handled with the efficiency of long practice. More food went into another bowl and she walked outside to feed the dog. Data followed, looking out the window in the back door as she opened a side door in the garage.

The dog shot past her, running to the car and the back door in turn. “Yes, baby, I know,” she crooned. “I didn’t mean to leave you there for so long, but I didn’t want you to get paw prints on the company. Here’s your dinner, Malta, if you’ll let me put it down!”

Malta’s nose was in the bowl before it reached the ground, and the woman sat on a porch swing next to the dog and listened to the rain. The dog finished her food and looked up with soulful black eyes. “Let me guess,” Davida said. “You want dessert. How about this?” She held out a bone-shaped biscuit. Malta trotted back to the garage with it.

Data sat down again as Davida came back to the kitchen. She washed her hands, filled a bright yellow teakettle and put it over a high flame. “Well, that’s done,” she said as she brushed back her bangs. The cats head-bumped her, purring; she made a clicking sound with her tongue and tapped her left clavicle, and a large cinnamon-and-cream shorthair with luxuriant white whiskers leaped onto her shoulder.

As the cat nuzzled her hair, she leaned against the counter to look at her guest. “Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Data? Or a bite to eat? I have people-food in the pantry, too.”

“Thank you, Miss Hutchins, but I am not hungry. I will have a cup of tea with you, though.” He thought it might seem ungrateful to refuse all her hospitality.

She smiled. “I guess if I got mugged, I’d be off my feed, too. How are you?”

“I am f…I am fine.” He had nearly said he was functioning within normal parameters.

She misunderstood the little hesitation. “Sure you are.” While the kettle boiled, she put the cat on the floor and got out a squat teapot and two mugs. “What kind of tea would you like?”

“Have you Earl Grey?” The captain’s favorite. Had they discovered his absence yet, his friends so far away? Two hours ago Data had opened his eyes in the alley. How long had he lain there, minutes? Hours?

No, the three who found him would not have left him undisturbed that long. And the streets carried plenty of traffic, so others might have found him, perhaps an agent of law enforcement. Would that have been better or worse than his actual circumstances? Worse, he decided, since he had given so little account of himself. One thing he recalled from historical records: during the Eugenics Wars, law enforcement became suspicious to the point of paranoia.

Davida, however, drew her erroneous conclusions and acted on them as if they were fact.

She rummaged through one of the kitchen cupboards and exclaimed, “Eureka! One pot of Earl Grey, coming up!” She measured the tea into the pot and poured the boiling water. The filled pot, along with the cups, spoons, a sugar bowl and small jug of milk, went on a tray.

“Allow me, Miss Hutchins,” Data said as he took the tray from her and carried it to the table. The familiar scent of bergamot filled his nostrils.

“Thanks. Oh, and by the way, you might as well call me Dae.” She sat down opposite him and checked to see if the tea had steeped enough.

He gave her a curious look as she poured. “I thought you said your given name was—”

“Davida.” She shuddered in revulsion. “It is, Mom’s father was a David, but I just can’t like ‘Davida’ so I go by ‘Dae’. It’s what all my friends call me. And somehow, ‘Miss Hutchins’ sounds too formal for two people sitting in a kitchen drinking tea during a storm.”

A bolt of lightning punctuated her remark, followed by a window-rattling clap of thunder. Data discovered his feet were suddenly surrounded by trembling felines.

“I hope you’re not averse to cats,” she laughed.

“Not at all. In fact, I have one of my own.” Who would care for Spot while he was gone?

Dae refilled their cups and suggested they move to the living room. The android picked up his cup and his feet with equal caution, and followed her again.

The hall led past the pantry to a formal dining room. The dark wood of the table, chairs, and glass-fronted hutch gleamed against peach walls and a bare oak floor. Through a large archway in the left wall lay the living room, half again the size of the kitchen. One end held a brick fireplace faced by a Navajo rug and flanked by a pair of Mission-style sofas and two chairs, their cushions a harmonious blend of Southwest patterns and chestnut leather. A glass and iron coffee table stood on the rug, smaller ones between the sofas and chairs. The opposite end of the room held a bookcase. Large windows were draped in brick-red canvas.

Dae took a chair facing the fireplace, so Data sat on the sofa nearest her and set his mug on the table between them. A dark gray longhair sprang into her lap and was asleep in a moment. The cinnamon cat jumped to the back of the sofa and draped his front paws over Data’s shoulder, butting his ear and purring. Data turned his head and looked into eyes as yellow as his own.

The other cats piled themselves on the cushion next to him. He was at a loss which to pet first when he noticed Dae staring at him again.

“I just can’t get over that makeup,” she said to his unspoken question. “It looks completely natural, and makes you completely alien! Your dad’s a talented man, Mr. Data.”

“You may call me Data. I must admit, I find your interest in my appearance puzzling.”

“Professional enthusiasm,” she answered with a grin. “I’m a makeup artist with Primus Studios, and I’m good at what I do, but there’s always more to learn. In this business, you have to keep learning or you risk stagnation and industry-wide obscurity.”

She stifled a yawn and took their empty mugs to the kitchen, returning with her knapsack, jacket and waist pouch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been at work most of the last two days and I’m beat right down to my socks. Let’s get you settled, then I plan to hit the hay for about twelve hours!

“You’re welcome to read anything in the place,” she offered. “Trust me, there’s lots to choose from! The TV and stereo are over there,” she nodded to a cabinet beside the fireplace, “and the remotes are on the table. I have plenty of videos, and lots of music.

“Through here,” and she went into a large square room off a shorter hall, “is my library, and office, and workroom.” Bookshelves covered all the wall space not used by windows, even spanned the wall above the desk, which held a monitor, keyboard, and mouse; the tower-type drive with CD-ROM and speakers sat beside the desk. A wheeled cart held a small printer.

She subscribed to the “Communication Superhighway Network,” or S-net, she said, and he could use the computer if he wished. Its manuals were on the shelf above the desk.

Against the fourth wall, which had wooden panels embedded in it, stood a drafting table with an adjustable top, and a tall rolling chair. The table held sketches and models for makeup designs. There was drawing paper, charcoal pencils, watercolors and pastel crayons, and he smelled, but did not see, oil paints. The room held an aura of chaos barely controlled.

Dae pointed out the guest bath, one of the doors along the hall, as they went to her room, with its black lacquered furniture and sea of blue-green carpet; the four-poster bed was canopied with deep blue brocade. She dropped her things on a bench in the walk-in closet. The last door led to the blue-and-white master bath.

She got towels, pillows, and bedding from the linen cupboard in the hall. One of the sofas was actually a sofa bed, which Dae made up for him. She hung the towels in the guest bath and put several items from a mirrored cabinet onto the counter.

“Here’s some cold cream for that great makeup. I should have offered it sooner, but it fascinates me so, I didn’t want to lose it! Let’s see, and a contact case and lens solution—very original color, those contacts, by the way—and some saline eye drops.

“Toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, razor. What else?” Dae tapped a fingernail against her lip. “Oh. Change of clothes.” She studied him and made a quick trip to her room.

“I buy my sweats extra-large because I like them roomy, so they should fit you, you’re pretty slim.” An appreciative smile quirked her lips as she handed him the clothes. “You’re stuck with your own shoes, your feet look a couple of sizes longer than mine. And here’s a couple of hangers for your costume, and a wig form for the hair.”

The flurry of activity left her even more tired. Yawning, she wished him a good night. “I hope your second day in L.A. will turn out better than your first.”

“Thank you again, Dae, for you kindness. I appreciate it more than I can say.”

“My pleasure, sir. It’s not every day I pick up a gorgeous guy in an alley!” Her teasing wink was the last thing he saw as she closed her door.

If she slept well, he should have at least eight hours during which to evaluate his situation.

He would probably need every minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about Spot: Much as it pains me, I have retconned Data's pet to be a female orange tabby when, at this point in the series--shortly after Spot's first appearance--the cat-actor was an exotic longhair, and Spot was referred to as male until the _ST:TNG_ seventh-season episode "Genesis", where the scriptwriters needed a female of some species who'd just given birth in order to spark Data's solution of the week.
> 
> I still haven't forgiven them for that. What, they thought we wouldn't notice?


	3. Chapter 3

3

 

 

            Will Riker always liked shift change.

            He enjoyed taking command of the bridge, being briefed on the last shift, anticipating the next mission.  He liked the smooth transition between those going off duty and those coming on.

            Today was routine.  They were well into the survey of Sector 37628, after dropping off the _Denver_ survivors a day and a half before.  Sector 37628 was itself routine.  Quiet.  Peaceful.

Dull.

The survey was no challenge but they would handle the assignment with the competence expected of the flagship.  With a hidden sigh he turned back to the activity around him.

            The bridge crews were all well trained, knew their places and their duties, stood ready to serve and learn and grow.  Everyone aspired to bridge duty, but none were given it.  They had to earn it—under the protective, watchful eye of Commander William T. Riker.

            He looked around and smiled.  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said to the officer on deck.  “I have the bridge.”  But he noticed something before taking the command chair and paused.

            Data was not at his post.

            The android had been bridge officer two shifts ago, and should now be serving at Ops, but he wasn’t there.  “Lieutenant,” Riker called, “did Commander Data request a duty change?”

            “No, sir.  He didn’t contact the bridge once I relieved him.”

            “Thank you.  Dismissed.”  Riker shook his head.  Data was, unsurprisingly, so punctual you could set a chronometer by him.  The pattern was so well established that even when Lore had masqueraded as his brother a few months into the ship’s tour of duty, he reported on time to serve Data’s shift.  “Bridge to Commander Data.”  No answer.  “Riker to Data.”  Still nothing.

            He looked back at the tactical station.  Jenna D’Sora was a capable officer, Worf’s handpicked replacement while he convalesced.  And even though she and Data hadn’t managed to attain a workable romance, Riker thought she had more than a professional concern in her eyes.

            She was untried in the capacity of chief of security, but everyone had to start somewhere.  Too bad it had to include a possible problem with an ex-boyfriend.  Riker said, “Lieutenant D’Sora, check Commander Data’s quarters.”  As she left, he called the relief officer to Ops.

 

            The acting security chief met two security officers at Data’s door.  She pressed the access chime twice and got no answer.

            Time to stop being polite.  “Computer, emergency access, authorization D’Sora-gamma-zeta-four-one.”  The door slid open on darkness.  The team heard a scrabbling noise and drew phasers as a howling, furry missile hit D’Sora in the chest.  “Data?” she called, trying to put Spot down so she could aim her phaser.

            She called for lights and they searched the rooms, but there was no sign of Data anywhere.  “Computer,” said D’Sora, “where is Commander Data?”

            The synthesized female voice reported that he was not aboard the _Enterprise_.  D’Sora, startled by the answer, asked when the android left.  “Lieutenant Commander Data has been absent six hours, fifty-one minutes.”

            She interrogated the computer further and got some very disturbing answers.  At last she said, “Then explain how he left the ship.”

            “Unable to comply.”  The voice sounded downright chilling.

            The security team traded glances.  D’Sora straightened her shoulders and tapped her comm badge.  “Security to Commander Riker.”

            “Did you find him, Lieutenant?” asked Riker.

            “Commander Data isn’t in his cabin, sir, and the computer says he’s been off the ship for seven hours.  But it also reports no shuttles missing, and we’ve been out of transporter range of planets or vessels since the crew of the _Denver_ disembarked.  That doesn’t leave many options.”

            Riker stood, seeing the bridge crew’s concern.  “Lieutenant, I want a ship-wide search for Mr. Data immediately.  Check every nook and cranny on this ship, twice if you have to, but find him!  Bridge to La Forge.”  Riker explained the situation to the chief engineer.  “Geordi, I want you to run all the transporter logs since Data’s last shift ended, see if anything shows up.  And put your best people on a Level One diagnostic of the computer.  If it’s been tampered with—”

            “Understood, sir,” La Forge broke in, damping down his own unease.  “I’ll coordinate with Lieutenant D’Sora.  La Forge out.”

            The first officer sighed.  Now came the hard part.  “Riker to Picard.  We have a problem.”

 

* * *

 

            Data changed clothes.  He tabled for the moment how to explain having left on his “makeup” and “wig,” but Dae would certainly find it strange if he stayed in “costume,” too.

            He hung up his uniform and brushed one hand over the fabric; durable, wrinkle-proof, resistant to odors, it was none the worse for his encounter in the alley.  Studying his new garb in the mirror over the sink, he understood the muggers’ reference to his uniform as “fancy sweats.”

            Data experienced a strange sense of wrongness.  Except when he was in costume on the holodeck, or in a play, or on special assignment, he was never out of this uniform.  Day in and day out, he virtually lived in it, and it was as familiar as his own skin.

            Counting his time at the Academy, Data had worn a Starfleet uniform for twenty-seven of his thirty years.  To not wear it only reinforced his alien status in this era.

            He studied the other things Dae provided.  What items should he use, and in what quantities, to assure her that the demands of basic hygiene were being met?  Not that human hygiene applied to him, since he never perspired, never got bad breath, seldom needed more than a cursory rinse and that only when a mission subjected him to abnormally dirty conditions.  His most thorough cleaning had come at his awakening, to wash away a thick layer of dust.

            Dae had mentioned the cold cream first, in reference to his “makeup,” so he deduced it was a cleansing product, though it did not feel particularly cold to his epidermal sensors.  How much should he discard?  Enough to make her believe he had attempted makeup removal with some diligence, so he scooped out a quarter of the jar, rubbed some between finger and thumb to study its texture and composition, then rinsed it down the drain.

            The soap should be used, as should the toothbrush and toothpaste.  He decided the shampoo could wait.  It seemed illogical to wash one’s hair before going to bed unless one was dirty.  And Geordi shaved in the morning, as did Picard, so Data would “shave” then, too. _Perhaps I can execute two avians with a single fragment of geologic amalgam,_ he said to himself, _and “shave” and “shampoo” during the same time interval._

            The dentifrice had a faint odor of mint that she would doubtless expect to smell on his breath, so he squeezed a short ribbon of it onto the brush and applied it to his teeth.  He had done something similar, after the _Tripoli_ crew found him.  It was novel at first, but a waste of time for an android with perfect teeth.  Data rinsed his mouth and spat into the sink.

            He considered the sounds he had heard from Dae’s bathroom and, to properly duplicate human habits, flushed the toilet, shaking his head over the primitive waste disposal system.  He concluded by washing his hands.

            Now he could start his research.

            In her office again, he sped through the hardware and software manuals.  Compared even to a tricorder, her computer was less than a child’s toy.  He flipped the switch on the surge-protection device and the hardware rewarded him with a variety of whirs, clicks and beeps.  The monitor finally settled to a beach scene peppered with graphic icons.

            One was a clock-calendar.  Its display read _Thursday—March 24, 1994—8:47 p.m_.  He had reasoned correctly, it seemed.  He sat and adjusted the chair for efficient use.

            This purported to be a user-friendly system, a relative term at best since one had to choose functions by manipulating a hand-held device named for a member of the genus _Mus_ , rather than touching a screen or making a verbal request.  He modified his expectations accordingly as he accessed the S-net.  This vast information network should have much of what he needed and had, from his point of view, only one major drawback: It required a password for access.

            He could try passwords until he chanced on the right one.  This would likely be ineffective, and since even this era’s computer systems had some rudimentary protection, he could find himself, and by extension, Dae, locked out.

            Or he could search her personal belongings for the password.

            His ethical programming rebelled.  Only the broadest interpretation of her offer would include reading her private records.  It stymied him, until a third option occurred to him.

            He could ask Dae.  Analyzing the rhythm of her breathing, he decided she was not yet asleep and tapped on her door to explain his problem.  “May I use your password?”

            “Sure, I should’ve thought of that.  Check my date book, second drawer on the right.  It’s in the margin, I always forget the silly thing.  Do you need help?”  The sound of covers being thrown back startled him.  She must not see him until he could create a plausible explanation!

            “No, Dae, that is not necessary,” he replied, and heard the covers pulled up.  “Thank you.  I will try not to bother you further.”

            He found the book and leafed through it.  Lists of lined-through names filled the margins until the fourth page; there, only one alphanumeric sequence had not been crossed out.  _Asimov1_.

            Dr. Isaac Asimov, one of the twentieth century’s most prolific authors.  “Asimov’s dream of the positronic brain,” Tasha had said when Data recalled Soong’s name, his father’s name, on Omicron Theta.

            That Data should find the name of his ultimate “grandfather” being used as a computer password by a complete stranger seemed an auspicious omen.  Not that he believed in omens per se, but a human in his predicament would certainly think it a favorable sign.

            The android typed the sequence.  The computer welcomed him to the S-net.

            Subjects scrolled by, categories of information available for instant access, “instant” being another relative term.  He pointed the cursor at “Current Events” and found a listing of entertainment opportunities.  Perhaps “News” would answer his questions.

            This was the right choice, a selection of newspaper and magazine articles going back four months.  It was a start.  He began to read.

 

            The Eugenics Wars were two years old.  Nearly three hundred adult offspring from the various breeding programs were known to exist.

            Khan Noonien Singh’s territory stretched from the Middle East to southeastern Asia.  He was touted as the most reasonable of the despots, if ruthless in his efficiency.  He faced few challenges from his fellow “Augments,” as some reports styled them, and eradicated the challengers.  Many believed he would be the last tyrant to fall—if any fell.

            Africa, excluding the western quarter, had fallen to the Augments.  Major powers were Ngoma Umbote in the south and east, and Set, Jahalla, and Ragossi in the north from Egypt to Morocco.  Thirty-seven others fought for territory elsewhere on the African continent.  Thirty more contended in South America.  The North American countries had so far managed, by presenting a united front, to avoid incursions on their own soil.

            But Southeast Asia and China had fallen, as had Mongolia.  Australia and New Zealand suffered under five claimants; eight more shared the many Pacific island groups.  Europe’s emerging Economic Union, precursor to the European Hegemony, felt the disruptions as seven Augments made bids for power.  Others had taken most of the former United Soviet Socialist Republics.  Those enhanced humans who could not lead their own campaigns served the others.

            Many of the articles were isolationist and advocated ignoring the Augments’ actions, because they would ultimately kill each other.  A few voices demanded military intervention by the United States, in conjunction with the United Nations.  Fewer still called for diplomatic ties to Khan.

            Polls said the majority wanted to drop neutron bombs on all Augment strongholds, and let the scavengers take care of the rest.  Data shook his head as he finished.  How little mankind had learned by this century!

            The other news items were less detailed but still informative.

            The space program was a recurrent topic.  Interplanetary travel was still a long and inefficient process, though pursued with hope.  The first of the lunar colonies produced hydroponic food crops to supplement Earth’s supplies; its mines and smelters yielded metals and minerals for arms and spacecraft manufacture.  Plans for a Martian colony were on hold until the conditions on Earth stabilized.

            Some articles advocated combining NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, with the Department of Defense in the hope that an effective weapon against the Augments could be developed.  Other articles cautioned that this might only escalate the problem.

            The latest in sleeper ships, the DX series, was in full production, and the DY series was in final development, a joint project between the private sector and NASA.  The most recent launches to Jupiter were just reaching Mars.

            An orbiting space station might or might not be built in the foreseeable future, depending as it did more on politics than scientific worth.  Funding for interplanetary missions was routinely approved, but a stationary platform above the Earth caused politicians to balk.

            Computers and new refinements were mentioned often.  Optical data storage, scanners, and touch-screen interfaces all pointed to a technological revolution that not even the post-atomic horrors would halt.  Further research in a larger database, plus direct examination, was called for; if Dae’s system was the norm, he would have to design his own for efficiency’s sake.

            But one could build an effective computing device with the extant technology, assuming one could devise the proper tools.  And assuming one knew more than the average computer.

            The cinnamon cat jumped onto the desk and paraded in front of the monitor.  “Down, Spot,” Data requested without thinking.  The yellow eyes met his, and the android recalled his location.  “I am sorry, cat,” he said, and scratched its head.  “I do not yet know your name.  But you behave much like my pet.  In fact,” he paused as the cat walked across the keyboard, causing a barrage of beeping, “your ability to disrupt my work is identical to Spot’s.  Perhaps you are related.”  The cat offered no opinion as it curled up beside the monitor and watched him.

            Data continued to explore and noted other S-net features he wished to try, if he stayed that long.  He had no idea how long the guise of an aspiring actor would satisfy his host.

            One thing he must do was find a convincing reason for his unchanged appearance.

            The most obvious answer, and the most truthful one, was that the cold cream did not work.  Makeup was, however, Dae’s livelihood, and she would see through any evasions.  After formulating a number of plausible responses based on her books about theatrical makeup, he realized it might be safer for him to answer in only the minimum detail required.  Perhaps Dae would go on making her own assumptions.

            According to the clock on the computer, it was now 2:04 a.m.  She had taken the trouble to make a place for him to “sleep,” so Data shut the system down and went to the living room.

            He watched a little television, found it unenlightening, and inspected Dae’s sound system and collection of music.  He had never heard of many of the performers, and others were familiar only as names.  Data set the volume to low and programmed a sample mode.

            He pulled back the comforter and sheet and lay down.  Then he sat up again and took off his boots.  The cats jumped to the foot of the bed as he arranged the covers in what he hoped was an appropriate fashion and lay down again.  His cinnamon friend pounced on Data’s covered feet, then walked up his body to curl under his chin and go to sleep purring.

            The android listened to the purring, to the music, to Dae’s breathing and the passing vehicular and aerial traffic.  He worked in his mind on several uncompleted projects from home.  He ran a self-diagnostic.

            He thought about his friends, and wondered if they thought of him.

 

* * *

 

            Five hours later the remaining senior officers met in the bridge observation lounge.

            La Forge reported no evidence of computer malfunction or tampering.  He and D’Sora had pieced together the android’s movements.

            At the end of his last shift, Data had gone directly to his quarters and ordered a feline supplement for Spot, then spent forty-two minutes listening to excerpts of several symphonies, six minutes recording a personal log entry, and then—

            Nothing.  The lights in his quarters dimmed twenty minutes after he finished his log entry.

            “According to his standing instructions,” La Forge said, “the cabin lights dim ten minutes after he leaves.”  He looked worried.  “So what happened when he stopped his log entry?”

            Picard turned to the acting security chief.  “Your report, Lieutenant.”

            “Aye, sir.”  D’Sora took a deep breath.  This was the first time she had filled in as security chief for more than a few hours, but Worf believed her qualified.  And she sat at a table with legends who still awed her after more than a year of service together.

            Captain Jean-Luc Picard, commander of the U.S.S. _Stargazer_ for its historic twenty-year mission, lone recovered survivor of Borg assimilation.  Commander William Riker, first Starfleet officer to serve on a Klingon ship, had turned down three commands to stay on the _Enterprise_ , and Dr. Beverly Crusher resigned as head of Starfleet Medical after a year to return.  Counselor Deanna Troi had saved half the crew by not abandoning the drive section after the ship hit a quantum filament, and Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge was the best engineer in the fleet.

            D’Sora, after an encouraging nod from Troi, said, “On Commander Riker’s order, the ship has been searched, physically and by sensors, from the bridge to the nacelles.  Every access conduit, every Jeffries tube, every crawlspace it was possible to enter.”  She swallowed.  “In case he was disabled and disassembled, we also searched for…components of Commander Data.”

            They found nothing.

Their own transporter had not been used, and sensors showed no signs of intruders or alien transporter traces.  All shuttlecraft were in the bays.  No hatch leading to the exterior hull had been unsealed since the ship’s last maintenance stop.  There was no way Data could have left the ship, D’Sora concluded.  But he was most certainly gone.

            “If he didn’t leave,” asked Riker, “and he wasn’t taken, where does that leave us?”

            Crusher wondered if Data could have been destroyed without a trace.  D’Sora said that the release of the amount of energy required to obliterate him would have set off alarms all over the ship.  The doctor gave her a relieved smile.

            “Very well,” Picard said, “Data wasn’t transported off, didn’t go for a walk on the outer hull, didn’t take a shuttle, and hasn’t been destroyed, as far as we can tell.

            “Given these facts, is there anything we’ve encountered, or of which we’ve heard, which could accomplish Data’s disappearance?”  He gazed expectantly at his staff.

            No one spoke for a long time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I was going to call Khan and his cohorts "Eugens" but have changed it to "Augments" in light of the _Enterprise_ episodes "Cold Station 12," "Borderland" and "The Augments".


	4. Chapter 4

4

 

 

            At 4:30 a.m., the phone rang.

            To Data’s ears, Dae was still sound asleep.  The phone sat on a table by the bookcase, so he answered it.  “Hello?”

            Dead silence.  Then a wary female voice said, “Hello.  Is Dae there?”

            “Yes, but she is asleep.”

            There was a longer pause.  “I’m really sorry to bother you two, but it’s about work.”

            The android asked the woman to wait and went to tap on the bedroom door.  The mattress creaked and covers rustled as Dae woke.  “Thanks, Data.  I’ll take it in here.”

            Just as he hung up, he heard the caller ask, “Dae, who in the world was that?”

            Data put the sofa back together.  It made sense, now; the ringing phone might have been so disturbing, sleep would be impossible to resume.  Looking for something else to do, he recalled seeing manuals for the various appliances and knew he ought to appear knowledgeable about them.  He read the manuals as he tried to listen to Tommy Dorsey instead of Dae’s voice.

 

            “Who is it?” Dae demanded.

            “It’s Kat.  Who was that?”

            “A lost sheep,” she snapped.  “What’s the matter, Kat?”

            Her friend sighed.  Kat, at the location shoot, was making up one of the leads, who complained that the base was the wrong color, she was making him look wrinkled, what did she mean by using that color rouge, now he looked like a goddamned puppet!  Call Dae, do it now, and find out what to do, you idiot!

            “Oh, joy,” said Dae.  “Dandy Randy pitches a fit.”

            “I’m afraid Mandy will be on the warpath next,” Kat groaned.

            “Dandy Randy” was Randall P. Jameson, self-centered, patronizing, and an utter jackass as far as the crew was concerned.  Amanda Carson, nicknamed “Randy Mandy” because of her frequent and unselective liaisons, was the makeup-chair hog and a prima donna to boot.  Both were blond, gorgeous, and totally obnoxious on their best days.

            “It’s her best act,” Dae agreed.  “They seem to think they run the world.  And imagine, they do it with only one lonely brain cell between them!”

            Kat suppressed a giggle and asked what to do about their tantrums.  Dae said, “They’re both natural blonds and they use the same base, not that they’d know.  Tell Randy I packed the right one, and if that doesn’t satisfy him, swap it for Mandy’s.  And ditto if she complains!

            “I guess I should have left instructions, because you do have to cut Randy’s rouge a little.  Other than that, you have everything you need.  And you can tell him,” she ended, “that if he makes you call me again on my day off, I’ll make him up like Quasimodo, hunchback and all!”

            “You don’t mean that!” laughed her friend.  Dae admitted Kat was right, since she was used to a regular paycheck, but it was such a tempting thought!

            “Now, tell me who answered the phone,” Kat demanded.  Dae explained.  “Darn, I was hoping I had some hot gossip about you, but all I can say is you’re a nice person.  How boring!  Go back to sleep, I’ll try not to bother you again.”  Dae buried her head under the pillows.

 

            She woke at seven, took a quick shower and dried her hair, shivering at the chill in the air, then brushed her teeth.  Dressed in a sweatshirt and heavy leggings, she went to the living room.  There sat Data, the sofa bed already folded away, cats leaving him to scurry around their mistress.

She blinked twice, thinking she must still be asleep.  “Why are you still made up?”

            Data braced himself for the worst as he said, “The cold cream was ineffective.”

            “What do you mean, ineffective?  It’s makeup, it has to come off.”  He shook his head and she saw he even had the lenses in.  “You could have taken off the wig and contacts, anyway.”

            He explained quite truthfully that he could not see without the “contacts,” and despite what she thought, he was not wearing a wig.

            “Oh.  Sorry.  But the makeup doesn’t make sense.”  She got the cold cream and a damp washcloth and sat beside him.  “Hold out your hand,” Dae ordered, and after a minute he did.  Hoping to stay with her until he got his bearings, he almost dreaded what would come.

            Dae pushed up his sleeve, noting to herself the slimness of his wrist and the firmness of the muscles beneath his skin.  She applied a generous dab of cream to his inner arm and rubbed.

            Then she applied more cream and scrubbed harder.  There was no change in his color, and not a trace of gold on the cloth.

            “Hmmm.”  Dae headed for her own bathroom and returned with another jar.  She unscrewed the lid and his nose wrinkled at the strong aroma.  “I know,” she agreed.  “It stinks because it’s kerosene-based, but it’s guaranteed to take the spots off a leopard!”

            “Why should anyone wish to remove the spots from a leopard?” he asked as she slapped a glob of the new cream on his arm.  “It would impede their ability to camouflage themselves in the wild, as well as decrease their aesthetic interest.”

            She shot him a quelling glance and scrubbed his arm.  Five minutes later she admitted defeat.  “But I don’t understand it,” she said as she looked from his golden arm to his golden eyes.  “What’d your dad do, mix this with some new kind of fixative?”

            “I am not certain.  He did not fully explain the process.”

            “I see.  You told him you had an audition for some sci-fi role and he said, ‘Let me do your makeup, son, I’ve made some great stuff, it won’t rub off!’  That was dumb!  I suppose the remover he concocted is in your luggage in Timbuktu?”

Data was silent.  She sighed, “Sorry, I’m sure he meant well.  But stuff that sticks like this could be bad for the skin.  At the least it’ll be inconvenient.  I hope you didn’t have any pressing engagements, because unless the airline finds your bags, you’re stuck here until you exfoliate.”

He reminded her that he knew no one in the area.  “Under the circumstances,” Data said, “I believe it is advisable to remain sequestered.”  His steady gaze held hers.  “Do you mind if I stay here?  I will find other accommodations if I must, but I confess the prospect is not appealing.  Especially considering the drawbacks inherent in my present appearance.”

            Dae knew she had taken a huge chance even letting him in her car, let alone stay the night.  Hell, he could be an ax murderer!  Still, he’d done nothing out of the ordinary, and the same considerations applied now as last night: the weather was lousy, he had no money and couldn’t get along anywhere without it, and he was all alone.

            And those eyes!  They charmed, worried, comforted and confused her, all at once.  They seemed to have so much to say.  And she wanted very much to listen.  Which, she reminded herself, was dumb.  Or at least naïve.

            Dae found she had wiped his arm clean, rolled down his sleeve and was still holding his hand.  “Yes, you can stay.”  She smiled.  “But you may find I’m not much of a roommate.”

            “I do not think, Dae, that you could be a bad roommate.  You have taken better care of me than I have any right to expect.  I do, however, intend to repay you, at least partially, by performing any tasks you deem necessary.”

            She grinned and asked if he wanted some coffee.  He nodded and offered to feed the cats.

            The first thing, he decided, was to organize her pantry.  Data made the offer as he dished out cat food.  She flushed.  “I am sorry if I embarrassed you, Dae.  It was not my intent.”

            “I know, I just hate to have people find out I’m such a slob about some things.”  She said her housekeeping habits were always a point of contention with her mother.  “I know it needs to be done, but I figure it’ll always be there.  Sort of like death and taxes.”

            He retrieved the reference and the corners of his mouth lifted briefly.  “You have spoken frequently of your mother.  Where does she live?”

            “At the moment she’s in Madagascar.”  Dae’s mother, Philomena Hutchins—Minnie to her friends—was a member of People Organized for Worldwide Relief, or POWR for short.

            Data accessed his history files.  POWR formed not long after the Concert for Bangladesh.  The founder, Samuel Ames, believed that while wealth might have its privileges, it also had its responsibilities.  He was smart, and a good businessman—his company had turned a profit all but three of the last forty-two years, while setting such high standards for safety, efficiency, and employee benefits that his rivals were forever catching up.

            His philosophy at POWR was simple: to help people by giving them the tools they needed to become independent of help.  His most devout hope was that his organization could someday be disbanded as unnecessary.

            According to Dae, Minnie had worked for Ames for thirty years, becoming head of Accounting.  A heart attack in 1986 forced her retirement, but they remained good friends.  She joined POWR shortly before the Eugenics Wars broke out.  Since then, she had been to most of Southeast Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa.

            “In her last letter,” Dae ended, “she said her group was going to meet Sam on Madagascar, then go to Sri Lanka.”  She looked worried.  “Mom hopes they’ll go to India.  She said she wants to have a word with Mr. Khan Noonien Singh.”

            “I did not know it was Khan’s policy to grant audiences,” said a surprised Data.

            Dae looked unhappy.  “It’s not.  I’m afraid Sam may try to force the issue.  Khan’s the strongest, so Sam hopes he can be convinced to put pressure on the rest to stop the killing.  Somehow,” she sighed, “I don’t think Khan’s going to be very receptive.”

            The coffeemaker finished dripping.  The cats crunched up breakfast as Dae got the dog food ready.  When the android asked if he might meet her dog, she waved him to the back yard.

            She had Data sit on the porch swing and put the food bowl at his feet.  Then she called Malta.  The dog stuck her head out of the garage and stepped onto the patio.  Her hips swayed and she nearly lost her balance, but once Malta reached the bowl, she ate with gusto.  Dae sat beside Data again.  “What is wrong with her?” he asked.

            “Hip dysplasia and old age, mostly,” replied Dae.  “Plus I think she’s a bit deaf.”  She smiled down at the dog licking the now-empty bowl.  “Here, give her this.”  She reached into a box on the table behind them and handed him a dog biscuit.  Malta sniffed him, licked his hands and took the biscuit back to the garage.  “Looks like you’ve made a friend.”

            “I am pleased to hear it,” Data said.  He picked up the bowl and held a hand out to Dae, realizing too late that the dog’s attentions had left his palms clammy.  She did not seem to mind.

            They both washed up and she poured coffee at the kitchen table, then stared out the rain-streaked window.  He watched her face change in the light.  Her hair fell in waves past her shoulders, and one lock formed a perfect curve around her ear.  “Data,” she said without looking at him, “why do people do what they do?”

            The question came out of left field, as his friends might say.  “I do not understand.”

            “I mean, people like the Augments.  They claim to be so superior.  But all they’ve done is conquer, enslave.  Maybe they are stronger than the rest of us, more intelligent, but they don’t seem too smart, if you get the distinction.  They could make the world better, but they’re tearing it apart.”  Dae sighed.  “Sometimes I think God should have quit on the fifth day.”

            He retrieved the scriptural allusion, integrated it with their earlier conversation, and asked, “Are you worried about your mother, Dae?”  She nodded, and suddenly she was crying, soft, despairing sobs that raised a thin aura of sympathy from the android.

            “I haven’t seen her since she joined POWR, and I’m afraid I won’t see her again.  I know why she’s there, but I can’t help feel a woman of sixty-six should be safe at home, not charging around the world trying to fix it.  Nobody should have to.  It shouldn’t need fixing.”

            Her musings reminded him of his own thoughts the day before.  Data gazed at her with all the compassion he could gather from his positronic matrix.  Which is to say, only the approximate facial expression and a silent wish he could do better.  Dae accepted it as the reality and sniffed.  “Sorry.  Rain depresses me sometimes.  What would you like for breakfast?”

            She offered choices from cold cereal to homemade waffles with maple syrup.  He wished to put her to no extra trouble, he said, and would have whatever she was having.  Dae grinned.  “That could be dangerous.  I’ve been known to eat cold pizza for breakfast!”

            He blinked, considering the idea.  “If that is your choice, why should you not?  It is no stranger than a meal of”—he cast through his memory and found a televised advertisement for a restaurant that served breakfast—“cooked avian ova and processed porcine flesh.”

            Dae winced at his choice of words.  “Well, so much for bacon and eggs!  You make it sound so barbaric.”  Her eyes widened.  “I’m sorry, are you a vegetarian?”

            Since there was no reasonable way to explain what he consumed, he told her he lapsed from vegetarianism on occasion.  “If you wish to have bacon and eggs, please do so.”

            “Nope,” she said.  “I’ve lost my taste for them for now.  How does oatmeal strike you?”

            Data’s brows knitted together.  “I have never been the target of an oatmeal projectile.”

            Her lips quivered, and she seemed to be hiccupping.  Finally she could hold back no longer and laughed.  It died off, then she looked at his serious face and started again.

            Five minutes later she was panting for breath and wiping tears from her eyes.  “Thanks, Data, I needed that!”  She kept giggling as she made breakfast.

            He could not fathom the source of her amusement, no more than when his remark about Jenna’s aversion to orderliness caused the O’Briens to laugh.  “It was not meant to be humorous.”

            “Well, that’s a shame, ’cause it was.  Very.  But bad, Data, really bad!”  She muffled another snicker and set a bowl of oatmeal in front of him.  He copied her as she added butter, brown sugar, and milk to her serving.

            They had a companionable breakfast, Data silently analyzing his food while they talked about her music collection and watched the rain fall.  She put the empty bowls into the dishwasher and turned it on, poured more coffee and went to the living room.  He stayed behind a second to study the dishwasher’s control panel, noting its primitive resemblance to the _Enterprise_ ’s displays, and found Dae on her knees before the hearth.  She asked how he felt about having a fire.

            “That would be acceptable,” he replied from long habit, and she gave him an odd glance.  He hurried on, “Since I estimate the external temperature to be only ten degrees Celsius, I would enjoy a fire.”  Data knew his phrasing might have implied the idea was unwelcome and reminded himself to be more careful.

She lit the fire and tossed in a couple of pinecones from a basket.  “Have you called the airline yet?”

            “Airline?”  It took him a nanosecond to place the word, but she was speaking again.

            “To ask if they’ve found your luggage.”

            “No, I have not.”  Data sought a plausible reason in the face of her exasperation.  “It seemed a trifle early.”

            “Well, it’s past eight, Lost and Found is sure to be open now.  Why not give them a call?  The yellow pages are on the bookshelf.”  Dae had curled up on the sofa in apparent repose, but her look held a new distrust.

            He checked the phone book, picked an airline at random and dialed the number, wondering if he had given her some clue that he was not who, or what, she thought.

            After eleven rings, a voice answered and put him on hold, where he heard seven minutes’ worth of loud, saccharine music before being asked what he needed.  Fifteen minutes and several transfers later, he was explaining to a very bored clerk that his bags had been misdirected.

            The clerk asked for his name, then wanted to know if “Data” was a first or last name?  “The only name.”  Data saw Dae smile, just a little, from the corner of his eye.

            When asked his flight number, Data replied, “I do not recall.  I was…mugged, and my ticket is gone.”  Even Dae heard the clerk’s pained sigh as he asked Data’s city of origin.  Data picked Indianapolis.  The increasingly annoyed voice named flight times, and again Data chose one at random; since he had not been on a flight, what difference did it make?

            The clerk found no listing under that name and asked if it might be under another.  Data said, “My father made the arrangements, so perhaps his name?  Noonien Soong.”  Admitting defeat, the clerk said the computer must be malfunctioning, could Data call later?

            Turning back to Dae, Data saw the same sympathetic expression she had worn last night.

            “Now what?” she asked.  “Did they lose you, too?”  He nodded and she chuckled.  “Data, you have the worst luck of anybody I’ve ever seen!”  She padded into the kitchen and returned with the coffee pot.  “And you’re just about the oddest person I’ve met in years.”

            “Why do you say that?” as he held out his mug.  Perhaps knowing would help him behave more appropriately.

            “Well, maybe ‘odd’ is a little strong,” she recanted.  “It’s just…the way you talk, for one thing, choosing your words like you’re studying the dictionary.  And I doubt most folks would be this calm after finding out they’d be wearing gold paint for several days.”

            At that she winked at him, and his expression relaxed.  “Verbal precision,” he said, “can often preclude misunderstandings.  And losing my temper will neither change my pigmentation nor find my luggage.”  He sighed.  “I will, it seems, have to remain odd in your view.”

            Her face fell.  “I’m sorry I said it.  You’re not strange, Data, I’m just not used to out-and-out nice people.  Which _is_ what you are.”  She grinned.  “Kind of charming, actually.”

            “Thank you,” the android said with a flicker of a smile.  “I thought you might be regretting your generosity.  But my offer to leave is genuine.”  He waited, patient and still.

            “No, you don’t have to go.”  She stopped and shot him a sly glance.  “After all, who else is going to volunteer to organize my pantry?”

 

            His biggest problem during the project, he thought, would be moving slowly enough to seem human.

            Dae left him to his chosen task to take care of her own long list of chores.  “The joys of independent adulthood,” she said as she loaded the washer.  “Is your costume washable?  I’ve got a load of darks to do, I can toss it in with them.”

            He had not considered washing his uniform.  He did not believe it would damage the material, so he said yes.  “But I do not think it should be put in the dryer.  It might shrink.”  Extremely unlikely, perhaps, but possible.

            As he worked, he examined his conduct and found that, while his actions might be appropriate, his words had been much less so—despite his comment on verbal precision.  He decided to watch television again at the first opportunity, to become more familiar with the current linguistic and behavioral norms.

            Still, when he had tried acting more human with Jenna, the contrast with his normal behavior confused her.  Dae was not familiar with his normal behavior, though, so that consideration did not apply.

            The android considered writing a script of sorts, but decided against it.  He could not anticipate every situation, so any such script would be incomplete at best, inappropriate at worst.  He would simply have to make creative use of the knowledge gained from his past experiences.

            But there were questions she might ask which any average human would be able to answer, about home and work and family.  He mulled over ideas as he worked, and at last settled on a basic outline that left plenty of room for improvisation.

            It occurred to him that any story he used could be construed as a lie, which his ethical programming forbade.  He was, however, permitted to protect himself, and a cover story would better allow him to do so, as had been the case on Romulus with Captain Picard....

            The android was not quite sure he believed his own arguments.

            He finished his task in what would be record time for a human.  Data went to find Dae, to see if the arrangements pleased her.

            She sat cross-legged on the floor in the office, rearranging books to make space for her new additions.  “Hi,” she said as she brushed back her bangs.  “Taking a break?”

            “No, Dae.  I have finished, and wished to know how else I might assist you.”

            “Done already?  Jeez, you’re quick!  Mind if I take a look?”

            He blinked.  “Of course not.  It is your pantry.”

            She laughed and unfolded herself.  Data helped her up, using as little force as possible.  It would not do to surprise her with his strength as he had Wesley and Riker.

            It appeared he was just strong enough for her expectations.  She padded to the pantry and said she was very impressed.

            The cats gathered around their feet, assuming a meal was in the offing.  “Not a chance, kids,” Dae said.  The gray longhair grew more vocal.  “Oh, put a cork in it, Fog!”

            “Fog?” Data asked.  “That is an unusual name.  How did you arrive at it?”

            “Some poem I read when I was little, about the fog walking on little cat feet.  She did look like a bedraggled little puff of fog when she showed up, so it felt like a good name.”

            The android said it was a very poetic story, “No pun intended,” he added when she groaned, and asked the names of the other cats.

            The youngest cat, the cinnamon male, was named—predictably, Data thought—Cinnamon, often called Cin for his troublemaking ways.  The rest were Princess, a small, elegant white shorthair who refused to have anything to do with anybody, even Dae; Omar, a deep-brown Persian-Angora mix; and Mongkut, a Siamese with slightly crossed, Wedgwood-blue eyes.

            Dae decided it was her turn to play Twenty Questions.  “So what’s your cat’s name?”

            “Spot.”

            “Is he a calico?”

            “No.  She is an orange tabby.”

            She paused a minute, then chuckled.  “I’ve never heard of anybody naming a striped cat ‘Spot’ before.  You’re an interesting character, Data.”  She laughed and went back to her office.

“Thank you, Dae. It is always preferable to be considered interesting rather than not.” She said, now that he was done with the pantry, how did he feel about helping her dust books? He replied that it would be acceptable, and when she spun to face him, he gave her an exaggerated wink. She laughed and went back to her office.

 


	5. Chapter 5

5

 

 

            “Captain,” D’Sora said at last, “we have to have missed something.”

            Riker agreed and suggested an unknown local phenomenon had removed Data, who must now be drifting in space somewhere behind them.  “Would he be all right like that?” asked Troi.

            “I think so,” said La Forge.  “Data said Lore had drifted for two years before the Pakleds found him.”  D’Sora said she would check the ship’s roster to see if anyone else was missing.

            Picard sorted through his options.  “Number One, set course back to the area we were surveying when Data vanished.  Warp six.  Mr. La Forge, make sure the sensors are in top working order.  If he’s out there, I want to find him.”

            The captain told D’Sora to prepare shuttles in case they had to search an area the ship itself could not reach.  “Doctor, coordinate with Mr. La Forge in case repairs become necessary.”  He looked around the table, invited other suggestions or comments, then dismissed them.

            Crusher stood and said she was headed to sickbay.  “Come with me, Deanna, and we’ll see how Worf’s getting along.”  The empath smiled and joined her in the turbolift.

 

            In his own estimation, the Klingon did both very well and very badly.

            He was well in that he lived, was on the _Enterprise_ instead of vegetating in a Starfleet medical facility, would recover his mobility, and still had his comrades and his son.

            On the other hand, he was bedridden except during therapy, which he felt moved too slowly.  Worse, he was bored.  He wanted to be on duty, helping search for Data.  The medical staff spoke of nothing else and Worf chafed at his uselessness.

            “Don’t worry,” Troi told him, “Lieutenant D’Sora is doing a fine job.  We just don’t have enough to work with.”  She briefed him on the staff meeting, then asked where his son was.

            “I sent Alexander to our quarters to study.  He came here after school and helped me during my therapy.”  The word came out in a discouraged growl.

            “Patience, Worf, patience.”  Crusher was sympathetic but firm.  “Dr. Russell’s technique was totally untried on Klingons.  While your prognosis is excellent,” she stressed, “we have to be cautious.  I’ll step up your schedule when I’m sure we won’t do more harm than good, and not before.  It could take several months before you’re completely recovered.”

            “Doctor Crusher, I will be back at my post in under a month, or I am no Klingon warrior.”  From anyone else, the statement would be pure braggadocio.

            Crusher and Troi traded indulgent smiles, which Worf noted and took as a challenge.  “Very well,” he offered, “I offer a wager.  If you two are right, and my recovery takes more than thirty days, I will…what?”  He waited for suitable terms.

            “Take us both dancing on our next shore leave!” Crusher suggested.  Worf’s raised eyebrow balanced the downward turn of his mouth.

            Troi studied him and shook her head.  She wanted something that would break down his usual reserve.  There were depths to the Klingon Troi had hardly suspected, he made it so difficult to get past his surface feelings.  Then he asked her to raise Alexander if he died, which he almost had.  He asked _her_ , not Riker, with whom he shared a deep friendship.  Having come so close to losing him, Troi reacted by wanting to know him better, and dancing was not enough.

            She whispered to Crusher and got a “Yes!”  Worf braced himself for mischief.

            The empath said, “You’ll write a holodeck program for us.  Set on…Risa.”  He frowned.  “A romantic comedy, _very_ romantic, with parts for Beverly and me, and you as the hero.”

            She knew the challenge she set for the glowering Klingon.  Worf’s holodeck programs were strictly utilitarian, designed to hone his fighting skills.  But even warriors needed to unbend now and then, and such a program would test his imagination, and his acting skills, to the limit.

            He lay silent, considering the terms.  “Agreed,” he said.  “And if I win, you will both join me in Ten-Forward for a celebration feast of pipius claw, bregit lung…”  He paused as a fierce smile split his grim face.  “And fresh gagh.”

            “Done,” Crusher said at once, and extended her hand to Worf.

            “Beverly,” Troi protested, “have you ever tasted bregit lung?”  She shivered and made a face as if she could taste it already.  “And gagh?  Oh, no, not me—”

            “It is too late, Counselor.”  Satisfaction glinted in Worf’s eyes.  “The wager is accepted.”

            Troi knew she was beaten.  Crusher ordered Worf to go to sleep or be sedated.  “As you wish, Doctor,” came the rumbling voice as he settled himself.  “I shall rest well tonight, and dream of my victory feast.  And my two special guests.”  He smiled again and closed his eyes.

            In Crusher’s office, Troi tried to warn her of what they would face if he won.

            Pipius claw was tolerable, she said, something like crab with an underlying flavor of raw oysters and fermented caviar.  On the other hand, bregit lung was mealy and gummy and tasted, in Troi’s words, like your worst nightmare.  But you could live with it if it was prepared in chech’tluth, because the potent beverage made you too drunk to care about the bregit lung.

            Gagh was the worst, though.  The empath had tried it.  Once.  “Beverly, they’re awful!  They’re…” she gulped, “rubbery on the outside, and slimy on the inside, and they cling to your throat as you swallow.  And if you try to swallow them whole, you can feel them wiggle all the way!  And the worst is if they try to wiggle back up—”

            Troi looked green around the edges.  “You don’t know what you’ve done, Beverly, you have _no_ idea.”  She folded her arms on Crusher’s desk and buried her head in them, shuddering.

            “Deanna, don’t worry.”  The doctor was almost too confident.  “Worf may be a Klingon warrior, he might be Kahless reincarnated for all I know, but I doubt he’ll be walking unassisted in under two months, and Jean-Luc would never allow him to serve at Tactical if he can’t walk on his own.  Frankly, if he can pull it off, I’ll eat as much gagh as he puts in front of me.  It’ll be worth it!”

            “Yes, yes,” murmured Troi.  “But I’m going to hope it takes him a month and a day.  Even a month and an hour.”  She shuddered again.  “Bregit lung.  Gagh.  I’ll never manage it.”

 

            Riker fidgeted.

            Three hours spent backtracking their course, and they were nearly five hours into intensive sensor sweeps of the area with no sign of Data, or of what had taken him.  There had to be more they could do.  “Probes,” he said, sitting up straighter.  “Why don’t we send out probes configured to scan for Data’s systems or comm signal?”  Picard’s nod gave the go-ahead.  The first officer ordered D’Sora to oversee the modifications herself, with La Forge’s input.

            They met in the probe storage room and got to work.  “Commander,” D’Sora asked, checking the first probe’s responses with a tricorder, “do you think we’ll find him?”

            He turned to her, his VISOR gleaming.  “Yes,” he said with more confidence than he felt.  “He’s out there somewhere, and if he’s somewhere, we can find him.  At least traces of him.”

            And those could be misleading.  “Like Kivas Fajo staging that shuttle explosion.  The scans checked out, but nothing else did.  If we’d given up, Data’d still be in Fajo’s collection.”

            Then the chief engineer looked hard at her.  “You didn’t ask that because you think we won’t find him.  You wanted me to believe we will.”

            “Yes, sir,” D’Sora admitted with half a smile.  “You’ve looked so dismal the last few hours, I was hoping to…I don’t know, raise your spirits, I guess.”

            La Forge grinned.  “Thanks.”  He tinkered with the probe’s sensors again, then looked up.  “Well, Lieutenant, let’s get started on the next one.”

 

            Two and a half hours later, the probes were on their way.  After confirming telemetry, so was the _Enterprise_.  The ship had received orders to help an ally planet evaluate a colony site.

 

* * *

 

            After a couple of hours working on her books, Dae said she would start dinner and make a quick trip to pick up a few things.  Data pointed out it was only eleven in the morning and that dinner seemed premature.  He stopped a moment to complete a memory search.  “Or do you use the archaic meaning, with dinner the midday meal and supper the evening one?”

            “No, I meant the evening meal, but I’m going to get it put together now and let it cook.”  The remark made him curious, so he decided to observe.

            Back in the kitchen—he noted they spent a great deal of time there and wondered if it was typical of the era—she retrieved an appliance labeled a “slow cooker,” then filled it with a whole chicken, several kinds of root vegetables cut into chunks, a cup or so of chicken broth, pepper and a pinch of salt.  Dae adjusted the heat control and put on the lid.  “There.  That should be done in about six hours, give or take a little.  Anything special you want from the store?”

            He said no, so she wrote out her list, changed clothes and left, asking if he minded letting Malta out of the garage while she closed the gate.  “Not at all.”

            Data took the opportunity to expand his relationship with the dog.  There were dogs on the _Enterprise_ , and he had considered a dog when choosing a pet.  He decided against it only because he believed the nature of a cat was better suited to his own personality.

            Still, he liked dogs, and Malta acted pleased to see him.  He saw a brush and comb on the table beside the dog biscuits and when his hand neared them, the dog pranced, her tongue lolling in an unmistakable canine grin.  “Do you wish to be groomed, Malta?” he asked.  She yipped.  He cocked his head and said, “I will take that as an affirmative response.”

            He sat on the swing with the dog at his feet, her chin resting on his knee.  After studying her bushy coat, Data drew the brush through her fur.  The dog wriggled in ecstasy.  The android brushed her for half an hour, using the comb to work out stubborn snarls.  Malta enjoyed the attention, and Data wondered if the cats would appreciate similar treatment.

            The dryer alarm went off before he found out.  He cleaned his hands and clothing of Malta’s hair, then took the contents of the dryer into Dae’s room.

            Her closet was not quite as disorganized as her pantry, but it was close.  Data thought about offering to rearrange it as well but decided that might be too personal.  Come to think of it, she might be displeased that he had handled her clothing.

            He sighed and hung most of the clothes toward the front of the closet so she could put them where she wished, folded the rest and left them on the bed.  The towels she had put in the washer before leaving had completed their cycle, so Data put them in dryer.  He looked around and found a brush and comb to groom the cats.

            He was still at it when Dae returned an hour and a half later.  Hearing her drive up, he moved the cat from his lap—it was Cin, who yowled an objection—and went outside.

            “So, how’d it go?” she asked as she unlocked the trunk.

            He reported grooming the animals and confessed, looking rather shamefaced, to entering her room and handling her clothes, mentioning wrinkle avoidance as an extenuating circumstance.

            She shot him a sharp glance and wondered if letting him stay might be a mistake after all.  All she saw was a man with a very embarrassed expression on his face.  She tried to visualize him as some kind of deranged lingerie fetishist, and was happy to fail.

            “It’s okay, Data,” she replied.  His face relaxed.  “Anyway, I bought you a few things you might need.  I ballparked on the sizes, but whatever doesn’t fit I can take back.”

            She handed him a couple of shopping bags and told him to try the things on while she unloaded the groceries.  “After I assist you,” he said, his voice firm.  He put down the shopping bags, picked up the bags of pet food and walked into the house.

            “Just set them on the floor,” she called after him, “and I’ll put them away.”  She slung the handles of three bags over her arms and picked up two more, a “lazy man’s load” her mom would call it.  It was a habit she had developed in the months after her mother’s heart attack, when Dae was doing most of the chores herself.

            Data came back out and, when he saw the load Dae had given herself, removed the rest of the grocery bags from the trunk.  He quickly calculated the best placement, arranged the various bags and returned to the house.

            Dae took the perishables to the kitchen and started back out.  There was some confusion in the pantry as she realized he had everything else and tried to let him by, but what with the bags and the cats and the close quarters, they ended up in a tangle against the washer.  “Maybe you should put them down?” she suggested with a giggle as they stood nose to nose.

            “Ah.  Perhaps you are correct.”  And he straightened his arms and let the bags slide to the floor with a crash.  The cats scattered.  “Is that okay?”

            “I’m glad I brought in the eggs and milk first!” she laughed, so he retrieved his new garments and went to change clothes.  “Use my room, it has better light,” she called after him, so he did.

            He found two sweatshirts, three more pairs of sweatpants, two long-sleeved T-shirts, two shirts of a type known as “polo,” and two pairs of jeans, one blue and one black.  A package containing six pairs of socks, another holding as many pair of underwear.  A box held a pair of athletic shoes.  A can of shaving cream and a tube of solid deodorant completed the inventory.

            Some of last night’s research had given him a good idea of money and its distribution in the present time, in the concrete rather than abstract sense he possessed from study in his own era.  The receipts showed she had spent a relatively large amount on a stranger who was keeping the truth from her solely to protect himself.

            Data was having trouble justifying his prevarications.  She behaved as a friend to him, and for that reason deserved the truth, though Q’s test might prohibit it.  Or was the test to be of human goodness toward the android specifically, in full knowledge of his nature?

            He tabled that line of thought and returned to his immediate concern, Dae’s financial status.  He sighed.  It would take a lot of helping out to properly compensate her.  In the meantime, he resolved to be as little strain on her resources as possible.

            To maintain his persona, he had to eat, but would do so sparingly.  Since he did not perspire, he thought he could reduce the amount of water and detergent used to clean his clothes.

            He realized he was assuming he would be at Dae’s a while.

            These thoughts passed through his mind as he tried on her purchases.  Dae had made good guesses as to his size.  The plain briefs fit almost as well as if replicated for him.  The socks were the right size, and the shoes, while a trifle long, were the right width.

            All the shirts fit with a little room to spare, as did the sweatpants.  He thought the jeans might be too tight, but she chose well there, too; though close-fitting, he found he could exercise his full range of motion without constriction.

            Data put on a dark-green polo shirt and the black jeans.  He considered telling her the shoes, the most costly purchase, did not fit, but realized she would only replace them.  Tying the laces, he stood up.  He left the other things on the bed, since he was unsure where else to put them.  Data looked at himself in her three-way floor mirror—and saw a man. 

            A _human_.  One with unusual coloring, true, but a human.

            How curious that this costume should make him appear more human than his uniform, or any of the clothing he wore for his holodeck experiences _._ “Intriguing,” he breathed to himself.

            It might be the casual style of the shirt more than anything, with its short sleeves and open neck.  It was very unlike most of the holodeck costumes he wore; his adventures tended to be period pieces involving complex, often voluminous, clothing. 

            He turned to leave when a pair of eyes caught his attention.  They gazed at him from a photograph on Dae’s dresser.  A woman’s eyes, large and dark, filled with humor and pain, set in a mature face very like Dae’s.  His host was also in the picture with her arm around the older woman.  This must be her mother.

            “Madam,” he said to the picture, “for my own…selfish…reasons, I commend your successful parenting of a kind and generous child.”  He returned to the pantry to help Dae.

 

* * *

 

            Picard said, “Can you give me a summary of the species’ characteristics, Mr. Data?”  The officer at Ops straightened and turned to him.  Then the captain remembered Data had been missing for three days.  He had been misled by the dark-haired human male subbing at Ops, as well as by his wish that this situation, so reminiscent of the one with Fajo, had not occurred.

            “I beg your pardon, Lieutenant Macombrey.”  Picard felt like a fool, especially with everyone so obviously not noticing his error.  “What information have we about Maledin VIII?”

            Their destination, half an hour away, was in a sector with three separate stars in unusually close proximity.  Each star had orbiting satellites, several of which were Class M.  Sentient life-forms had been found only on the eighth satellite of the largest star, Maledin.

            Maledin VIII, like Earth, was mostly water, but evolution had taken a different course.  When some species first crawled from the salt-laden seas of Earth, they never went back; the proto-Malèdri, however, never fully left their home waters and were amphibious.  The modern species, equally at ease on land or in water, breathed both air and oxygenated water.

            First contact had come forty years earlier, and though the Malèdri had not yet requested Federation membership, relations were cordial.  The species traded in pearl-like gems called dirnal, and in foodstuffs from edible seaweed to crustaceans as prized as Aldeberan shellmouths, though the Malèdri were so far wise enough not to deplete their planet’s resources.

            They had already colonized two planets in their own star’s system, but these were too small for self-sufficiency.  The new colony they planned would be different.

 

            Picard went to the transporter room to greet the visitors.  Stature was the only clue to gender, as the species lacked visible sexual characteristics.  Two of the four were female, somewhat larger than the males as was sometimes the case with Earth’s amphibians.

            Malèdri had four limbs and walked upright, but the powerful legs had two sets of “knees” and ended in long, slim feet.  Picard knew those feet extended into supple webbing, some of which was also visible on their long-fingered hands.  Their skin was a smooth, glistening blue-green, and clear membranes covered their large orange eyes to retain moisture; their mouths, little more than slits, bore perpetual smiles. 

            “Welcome to the _Enterprise_.  I’m Captain Picard.”

            One of the females put a hand to her thorax and spoke, enriched air hissing past her blue neck gills from the device affixed to the base of her throat.  “I am Sthal,” she said, her voice sibilant.  “These others are Threrr, Fren, and Myr.”  Male then female then male, they touched their chests and stepped off the pad as she said their names.

            “Will you require a change in atmospheric controls?” the captain asked.  “We can increase humidity if you desire, or hold the meeting in one of the aquatic labs.”

             “With us paddling through the water,” Sthal asked, “as you and your seconds lounge beside a pool?  Thank you for your courtesy, Captain, but it is unnecessary.”

            “As you wish, Sthal.  My officers will meet us in the bridge observation lounge.”

            Riker, Troi, and Crusher were already there when Picard and the guests arrived.  La Forge entered as they sat down; he and D’Sora had set up a new series of scans for Data.

            Sthal asked Myr to explain their plan.  He said, “A planet orbiting two of the other suns in our system appears suitable for colonization by our species.  Unfortunately, our instruments cannot reveal the nature of the dominant life-forms, and we do not wish to risk a full-scale colony until we know our presence will not harm other species.”

            It was time for direct inspection, but their space technology was pre-warp.  The planet had a unique orbital path around the other two stars, and the potential colony was well over a year away at their maximum speed during its closest approach.  Since it was now at its furthest point, the trip would take the Malèdri more than five years.

            If the planet met their needs, the Malèdri requested the _Enterprise_ ’s help in setting up aquaforming stations on each continent, prior to transporting a full colony of twelve thousand.

            “Aquaforming?” said La Forge.  “I’ve never heard that term.”

            Threrr looked at the engineer with unblinking eyes.  “Do not you humans use terraforming to make a world habitable?”  La Forge nodded.  “The principle is much the same.”

            For example, Maledin VIII’s oceans were so low in saline content as to be classed as fresh water by Terran standards.  Aquaforming required subtle environmental manipulation to lower regional saline levels without damage to indigenous life.  And it could always fail.

.

            The meeting lasted several hours, broke for a meal, and continued.  It concluded only when the Malèdri showed signs of dehydration.  Picard feared they had overextended themselves.

            “No, Captain,” Fren assured him.  “We do feel discomfort, but we can tolerate it several hours more if necessary.”  She paused.  “In honesty, we hope it will not be.”

            “Of course not,” he answered.  “Contact us when you wish to return.  In the meantime, if you’ll transmit your sensor parameters, Commander La Forge can work with our Aquatic Sciences department to begin setting up scans.  We’ll depart as soon as you’re ready.”

            Following Sthal’s lead, the other Malèdri stood and touched hands to thoraxes.  “Thank you, Captain,” she said.  “It should be less than a day.  Perhaps we could impose upon you to prepare a habitat for our orbit around Brethal, the planet we have chosen.  It would make things easier for us.”  Picard suggested sending those specifications, too.

            The Malèdri invited the captain to visit the surface of their planet, along with any of his officers and crew, as thanks for their help.

 

* * *

 

            About four, Dae checked the chicken and vegetables and added some seasonings.  Data complimented her on the aroma, since he reasoned a human would.  She smiled, “I hope it tastes good, too.”  She planned to cook a lot over the next couple of days, to stockpile meals against next week’s long hours at work.  “You’re welcome to eat any time you want,” she assured him.  “But I’m never sure what time I’ll be home.  So, what now?”

            He asked what she meant.  “Well, you’ve spent the day working when you didn’t have to.  You’ve earned a break.  Do you want to read, or watch TV, or play a game?”

            His eyes lit up.  “Do you play chess?  Or perhaps poker?”

            “Sorry, I never learned chess,” laughed Dae, “and poker?  Not me, I don’t have the face for it!  How about backgammon?”  They played three games before she made dumplings, which cooked while they fed her zoo.  At last, they began their own meal.

            She handed the android a carving knife and fork while she served the vegetables and fluffy dumplings.  He served her, then put a single wing on his own plate.  As soon as he put down the utensils, she neatly carved off a leg quarter and added it to the wing.

            “Dae, that is not necessary.  I am…not very hungry.”

            “Nonsense.  Growing boys have to eat.”

            He raised an eyebrow.  “I am not a growing boy.  I do not require this much food.”  He started to put the untouched chicken back on the platter.

            “All right, what’s this really about?” Dae asked, irritation making the question blunt.  “If you don’t like it, say so.”  She watched him a moment.  “But that isn’t it, is it?”

            The android hesitated.  “No, it is not,” he said, troubled.  “You have already given me more than I can repay.  I cannot allow you to expend additional resources on my behalf.”

            “So you’ll pay me back later.”  She shrugged.

            He shook his head.  “You do not understand.  I have no funds with which to repay you.”

            The proverbial light dawned.  “It’s been a long time between parts, hasn’t it?”  He nodded.  “Is that why you moved back in with your dad?”  Another hesitant nod, and she thought he looked as ashamed as she felt.

            On impulse, Dae reached across the table and patted his hand.  “Data, it’s okay.  You aren’t the first adult who’s moved back home, and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”  She gave a sharp laugh.  “Me, I barely moved out!  Do you want to let your dad know where you are?”

            “My father accompanied me to the airport,” the android began, pleased with his foresight, “to begin an extended trip.  His itinerary is in my luggage.  I have no way to reach him.”

            “Murphy’s Law again.  Now, as to the money,” and her voice was firm, “don’t give it another thought.”  He started to protest.  “No, I’m serious!  When your bags come back, I’ll keep the sweats, you keep the rest.

            “But I won’t let you starve yourself to save me money!  Consider it ‘casting my bread on the waters,’ if you like.  I may not be rich as Croesus, but I can afford to feed you.  Maybe not champagne and caviar, but…well, I think you get my point.”

            “Yes, Dae, I do.  I find myself thanking you again for your kindness.”  He gave her a slight smile.  “And I believe I will, with your permission, have another dumpling.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

6

 

 

            They were nearly a day in orbit at Maledin VIII.  Picard planned one more meeting on board, and La Forge worked with his staff to modify the sensors for the Malèdri project.

            The captain accepted the Malèdri offer for recreation.  His people had been pushed hard of late, what with the _Denver_ tragedy, Worf’s injury, and now Data’s disappearance.  He asked Sthal to brief Counselor Troi on customs and protocol prior to shore leave assignments.  Meanwhile, he and La Forge would beam down immediately.

            They were going to see an aquaforming station in action.  Sthal recommended, with an amused sort of snort, that they be prepared to get their feet wet.

 

            “Come on, Worf,” Crusher wheedled.  “I want you to get some fresh air and do some swimming.  It’s good therapy, it’ll help your coordination and build strength.”

            He remained unimpressed.  “I can swim on the ship.  If I must.”  Had he not been so impressive a warrior, even if temporarily disabled, the doctor would have said he pouted.

            She played her trump card.  “Well, if you enjoy looking at the bulkheads _that_ much…”

            That was the most compelling argument possible.  “Very well, Doctor,” said the Klingon, hiding his enthusiasm under gruffness, “if we may take Alexander.”  Though Worf was still new to fatherhood, he could tell the boy needed relief from the stress surrounding his father’s injuries.

            “Absolutely!” she agreed.  “I’ll see if Deanna wants to go with us.”

            “Doctor!”  She stopped in the act of tapping her comm badge.  “Are you certain Counselor Troi will not try to interfere with my recovery to avoid paying off the wager?”

            She saw his amused look.  “Don’t worry, Worf,” came her reassuring answer.  “Alexander and I will protect you from the big bad ship’s counselor.”  She called an orderly to help Worf, despite his frown, and went to put on something more suited to sun, sea, and sand than a uniform.

            Troi met them in the transporter room with Alexander in tow, both laden with towels, baskets, and blankets.  The four beamed down to a reception area on a shimmering lavender beach.  The Malèd on duty there suggested adjusting the anti-grav unit on Worf’s chair so it would kick up less sand, and directed them down the beach where a reef made the waves gentle.

            “But you should exercise caution,” Chor warned.  “It is the migration of the gregchth.”  The name came out as a throat-shredding gargle.  “We cannot always keep the shallows clear of them.  They are peaceable, but can cause a painful injury with their tail spines if annoyed.”

            He showed them a picture of one, a flat blue triangle about one-third meter in length with whiplike projections at each corner.  “They sometimes bury themselves in sand and do the most damage if stepped on.  This length of shallows was cleared yesterday, and a magnetic field set up to discourage their return.”  He said it should have no effect on the anti-grav chair.  Troi assured him they would take care and the four moved out onto the beach.

            “Well, Worf,” Troi said with a playful wink over his head to Crusher, “have you started that holodeck program yet?  I doubt procrastinating will improve it.”

            Worf turned a jaundiced eye to her, then to the doctor.  “No, Counselor, I have not.  There will be no need.  You, however, should prepare yourself to consume a great deal of gagh.”  He turned up the speed control on his chair and zoomed down the beach.

            The women took his dare and raced alongside.  Alexander jogged in the swath left by the anti-grav field and leapfrogged over the hillocks of sand on either side.

            The chair finally halted several hundred meters down the beach, far out of sight of the reception area.  Troi threw herself, panting and laughing, onto the sand.  Crusher spread out the blanket she carried, then pulled her simple dress over her head to reveal an emerald-green swimsuit.  She tied her hair back and looked like a teen-ager.

            The empath, not to be outdone, slipped off her casual uniform and boots.  Troi’s suit, with its purple and blue swirls, accented her dark beauty.  She twisted her hair into a knot and called, “Alexander!”  The boy looked up from a small crablike creature.  “Race you to the water!”

            He waved and started running.  When he was even with her, Troi took off.  They hit the first wave at the same time, splashing each other and giggling.  The sounds carried back to Worf and Crusher, the one still in his chair, the other stretched out on her stomach.

            Worf sighed.  “What’s wrong?” the doctor asked.  “Are you in pain?”  She had brought a full medical kit, since his injuries would be excruciating from a human standpoint.

            “No, Doctor.”  He watched his son try to stand on Troi’s shoulders.  “It is just…I did not fully understand, until Commander Riker refused to assist me in the Hegh’bat, how meaningful life is.”  When he stopped, Crusher turned and found him watching her.  “Will I be father to my son, and not burden?  Will I _live_ , or should I have chosen Hegh’bat after all?”

            She rose to her knees, put one hand over his, and gave him a larger-than-usual dose of the truth.  “Worf, no one can be one hundred percent sure, but all the medical signs point to your full and total recovery.  And sometimes,” she added with a glance toward Alexander, “having someone to live for makes all the difference in the world.”

            He knew she had suffered greatly at the loss of her husband—he could understand it now that K’Ehleyr was dead—and how having Wesley must have given her the courage to go on.  He smiled briefly and thanked her, and she grinned and guided the chair into the water.  “Now, my warrior friend, you’d better prepare yourself to get very wet!”

            Troi and Alexander swam up as the doctor told Worf to stand.  He braced himself and pushed, put one foot in the sand, then the other, and smiled to feel his toes curl and grip.  Crusher and Troi helped Worf remove his robe, and Alexander moved the chair onto the beach.

            The doctor’s plan was simple:  she and Troi would hold Worf steady while he practiced swimming kicks.  It might be less scenic than letting him swim on his own, but this way he would exercise both his leg muscles and the neural connections that were still learning their functions.

            Worf was unimpressed but cooperative.  For about an hour, interspersed with rest, the Klingon kicked on command.  His first movements were ungainly, legs thrashing, but he kept it up because Crusher demanded it—and because Alexander was there.

            Moving him from his back to each side, Crusher varied the type of kick so Worf would use all the muscle groups, and it got easier as he went on.  The water was pleasantly warm and supported him while offering decent resistance to motion.  His son also encouraged him.

            At last the women helped him turn over onto his stomach and crouched so he could put his hands on their shoulders to keep his head above water.  The empath told Alexander to enjoy himself.  After asking his father’s permission, the boy swam off to investigate more crab-things.

            “Okay, Worf,” said Crusher.  “The whip kick.  And I expect you to knock us down!”

            She and Troi braced themselves in the sand as Worf complied with a ferocious smile.  He might be an invalid, but he was an extraordinarily strong one.  The doctor told him he could do better, so he kicked harder and felt them shift for balance.  He used the exercise to vent his frustration at his helplessness.  That a warrior should be so wholly dependent!  And there he found the crux of his frustration: even after all his time with these people he had learned to trust, dependence on others was still his greatest trial.  Worf kicked harder.

            Alexander followed one of the crab-things as it skittered through the shallows.

 

* * *

 

            Data spent the first few days learning about the world via the various media and the S-net.  Direct investigation would have to wait until he solved his pigmentation problem.

            He hardly saw Dae.  Once the weekend was past, she rose at four in the morning and was gone from five until anywhere from seven to midnight.  He made it a practice, after Monday, to keep the same hours she did.  He fed the animals in the morning so she could sleep a few more minutes, and again in the evenings so she could relax.

            Tuesday he began making breakfast and dinner for her.  True, breakfast was oatmeal, since he could copy what she had done, and for dinner he reheated something she had cooked on the weekend, but she said one night it was the thought that counted.

            Preparing meals also kept her away from the refrigerator.  He ate with her on occasion, merely to keep her company and reassure her that he was not starving himself for her financial benefit.  He sorted the mail, kept the house picked up, and did his research.  He expanded his friendship with her pets, except Princess, who approached even Dae with great reluctance and Data not at all.  And he wondered how long the situation could continue.

            About a week, as it turned out.

 

* * *

 

            Picard and La Forge stood up to their ankles in sand, looking out toward the aquaforming dome in the bay.  Its entry port was accessible in two ways, via a long causeway used to move equipment, or by swimming.  Sthal let them choose.

            The officers folded their outer clothing into small flat duffels around their waists before donning miniaturized scuba gear with their communicators attached to the chest straps.  Their willingness to experience her way of life flattered the Malèd—many visitors enjoyed her planet only by lying on the beaches like so many frying fish.

            She led the way below the surface and swam mermaid-like toward the dome.  The humans, though less graceful, easily kept pace, then climbed a short ladder to the entry port.

            The clear dome was anchored in the bedrock beneath the sand.  Picard, looking out at the swirling deposits of sand pushed up against the dome by one tidal surge and wiped away by the next, thought the design a novel meeting of artistry and practical necessity.  The chief engineer was soon at home among the machines, discussing their uses with the operators.

            Aquaforming involved analysis and adjustment of salinity, oxygenation levels, and mineral composition, in this case to Malèdri specifications, done gradually to give native species time to adapt or migrate.  Aquaformed water tended to remain discrete due to differences in temperature, specific gravity and surface tension.

            “It seems a very slow process,” the captain said as La Forge walked over.

            “Yes, it is,” replied Sthal.  “But we are patient.  And we are not sure the method will work on a planetary basis.  We will use the shallows, which suit our purposes best, and only some of those.  Many areas will remain untouched for native species that cannot adapt.”

            She gestured for them to follow through a tube leading to a smaller dome.  “I would show you our dirnal-gathering methods.”

            “Ah, yes,” Picard said.  “I’ve heard of the gems, but I’ve never seen them.”  Neither had La Forge, who knew only that dirnal came from large mollusk-like creatures called tresh.  Sthal remarked that, unlike ancient Earth’s pearl harvesting, the tresh were not killed to gather dirnal.  They were tickled.  The officers exchanged amused glances at the description, but they understood when they watched the harvest.

            The tresh were large, up to two meters long and half as much across, clinging to the bedrock by means of a strong muscle called a foot.  There were several Malèdri in the water carrying mesh collection sacks.  One approached a tresh and ran his hands over the convoluted upper shell, along the foot muscle and the soft tissue where the upper and lower shells joined.

            The shell parted to expose the tresh’s glistening white body nestled in its lower curve.  The collector then stroked the muscle lining the upper shell.  The shell gaped wider and the tresh began to pulsate and heave in an irregular motion.  Little puffs of sand shot up.

            “It’s…it’s laughing!” La Forge said in amazement.  The longer they looked, the more like laughter it seemed.  At last, the body lifted an accretion of glimmering material, almost like a thank-you gift.  The Malèd put it in the sack, stroked the tresh one more time along its body and upper shell, and backed away as the shells came together.

            Sthal tapped on the wall and the collector returned to the dome by a lock system.  He smiled and asked, “You saw?”  She nodded.  “Tchon is my favorite, and always saves her best for me.”  He unloaded the dirnal he had gathered, saving Tchon’s until last.

            The gems resembled Terran pearls but averaged eight to ten centimeters across.  The shapes and colors varied—spheres or teardrops or vague star shapes in cream, pink or gray.

            Tchon’s offering to the harvest was spectacular.  Nearly a hundred separate spheres clustered together, it looked like a huge bunch of ripe grapes dipped in deep rose-pink nacre with a delicate tracing of golden opalescence.  “This is the work of four years,” said the collector, Jerath.  “Tchon is our greatest artist, and very adept at hiding her larger projects behind less remarkable ones.”

            Picard touched the satiny globes with an awe bordering on reverence.  “Magnificent!”

            “Mother Nature at her finest,” agreed La Forge.  “I understand why these are so valued.  But how do you stop thieves?”

            Jerath grinned.  _“We_ do not discourage thieves.  The tresh do.”  He explained that the technique looked simple but involved much training.  One had to learn the minor changes indicating a tresh had an offering, and how to tickle the shell open.

            The shell’s edges were razor-sharp.  If the normal pattern was not followed, the irritated tresh could easily clamp shut on a limb.  And once shut, the shell stayed shut for hours, sometimes days, unless properly coaxed.  The thief either lost a limb or drowned.

            Jerath ended, “None who are not Malèdri have ever been taught the ways of the dirnal harvest.  There have been no attempts at theft in thirty-eight of your years.”  He carried the gems to a storage area for sorting and grading.  Many would be fashioned into jewelry, but the best specimens were display pieces and collectors offered much for them.  Tchon’s offering, for example, might bring sixty or seventy bars of latinum.

            Sthal and the officers went back to the lab proper.  La Forge asked a few more questions, then said, “Sthal, Captain, I’ve got some ideas to make aquaforming a little more efficient.  It’ll still be slow,” and the Malèd returned his smile, “but mineral and gas transfer rates can be increased.  And the Malèdri equipment can be adapted to use our desalinization methods.”

            “Very good, Mr. La Forge,” complimented Picard.  “Then, Sthal, it would seem we’re ready for the trip to Brethal.  How many will we be carrying, so we can complete your habitat?”

            “We have chosen fifty of our best scientists,” she replied.  “With what we have already observed, and with your help, they should be able to evaluate the planet and find the best site for our effort.  We will also take two dozen tresh.  They are very sensitive to environment.  If they suffer any discomfort, we will know, and can plan accordingly.”

            Picard looked surprised.  “You can communicate with the tresh?”

            It was a subtle thing, she explained, something between speech and telepathy.  They were partners.  And the first group was a family, eager for the experiment.

            La Forge smiled wider.  “Is that another reason poachers don’t stand a chance here?”  Sthal’s lipless grin grew.  “Captain, I just might jump ship!  A place where you can talk the oysters into giving you pearls!”  His face fell.  “I just wish Data was here to see this.”

            “As do I, Geordi.  As do I.”  The captain sighed and said they should be getting back.

            _“Riker to Picard!”_

            He tapped his communicator.  “Here, Number One.  Is there a problem?”

            “Dr. Crusher’s called for an emergency beam-up, but Chief O’Brien says there’s a magnetic field wreaking havoc with the transporter at their location!”

            Picard asked for the coordinates and looked to Sthal, who was already communicating with another station.  She hurried back and said the field was on an automatic cycle and would continue another hour; it could only be shut down at the reception area.

            “Commander, transport us to their beam-down coordinates.”  Sthal volunteered to help.  The captain nodded.  “Three to transport, Mr. O’Brien.  Energize.”

 

            Something was wrong somewhere.

            That much she knew.  She could not have explained how, but she knew it.  It had been this way since Data vanished.  Guinan shook her head and abandoned her office for the bar.

            She served drinks, made her quiet jokes, listened as bartenders throughout the galaxy did.  It was an apt career for one from a planet of listeners.  Except her people were more than that.

            They were on intimate terms with time.  And so she knew that somewhere, some _when_ , time was being tampered with.

            Not a major change yet, no sense of utter wrongness like the one hovering over the temporal rift near Narendra III.  Instead, Guinan felt merely a potential for change.

            Her first sense of it came a few days ago.  She had since caught brief whiffs of her longtime adversary, elusive, almost illusive.  The putrid miasma of his passing hung in the air all over the ship, invisible to all but her, so she thought she had imagined it and had not told Picard.  Some things, like her sensitivity to chronological anomalies in general, were too iffy to explain.

            She rolled the phrase around on her mind’s tongue, like creating a new drink.  It tasted like dreck, and she settled again on “time sense,” the phrase she coined in the days of her youth.  A very long time ago, indeed.

            Her time sense was making her teeth itch.

            Because whatever “it” was, it was happening again.

            She looked out at the watery blue sphere of Maledin VIII, knew time was being twisted down there but no more than that.  She thought about telling Picard, and again decided not to.  What could she report?  Something was rotten in the state of _Enterprise_?  He already knew that.

            And he would never appreciate her mangling his beloved Shakespeare.  The bartender schooled her night-dark face into an expression of serene good humor and poured another drink.

 

* * *

 

            “Look, Kat, I told you,” Dae said in exasperation, “he’s staying until the airline finds his luggage.”

            It was Saturday morning, the day before Easter.  The stress level of the week’s shooting had been on a par with last week’s, but another few hours would see things wrapped until Monday.  Dae and Kat shared a Danish and coffee as they compared horror stories about Randy and Mandy.  Kat made a very abrupt segue.  “So, is your lost sheep still there?”

            Her friend rolled her eyes and repeated the term of Data’s stay.  “The Lost and Found still shows him as lost, that’s all.  And I don’t know why you’re so interested.  He’s just a nice guy who’s having a little trouble.  I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.”

            Kat shook her head at Dae’s innocence.  She pointed out there were any number of reasons to be concerned.  That “nice guy” could be a thief, a psycho, somebody who lulled women into a false sense of security, married them and bled them of their financial assets—

            “I don’t have any financial assets.”

            “But he doesn’t know that.  Or does he?  How much have you told him about yourself?”

            “Kat,” Dae exploded, “mind your own bloody business!  Data isn’t like that!”

            “And another thing,” Kat went on as if Dae hadn’t spoken.  “What kind of name is ‘Data’ anyway?”  She shook a finger at Dae.  “He’s hiding something.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

            She got home a bit after three that afternoon, having picked up a few things for Easter dinner.  It would just be the two of them, she said as the android put a leg of lamb and fresh peas in the fridge.  Then she asked if the airline had any news on his luggage.

            “No.  They have made no progress,” he answered.  Data had not bothered calling again, since there was no way progress could be made.  He accepted a carton of eggs from her.

            Warning bells and Kat’s cautions echoed in the back of her mind, but Dae ignored them.  She was letting her imagination run wild.  He was just a tad eccentric, which was no reason to think he was anything but what he claimed.

            She decided to dust some more books.  Data offered to help, and she smiled.

 

* * *

 

            Worf was moments away from sleep.  His exercises finished to Crusher’s satisfaction, she and Troi had turned him onto his back again.  He floated in the water supported by their hands, and rested as they talked, laughing now and then.  He admitted to himself he found them both very attractive, for non-Klingons.

            But the doctor not only outranked him, she and Picard were friends with much unresolved between them.  As for Troi, she and Riker shared a close friendship.  He had neither reason nor wish to interfere in either relationship.  Besides, as he had told Guinan, humans were too fragile to cope with Klingon intimacy, despite the bartender’s veiled references.

            It was a ridiculous line of thought; these women were his comrades.  And he was in no fit condition to embark on romance—with anyone.  A stab of pain came as he saw K’Ehleyr’s broken body in his mind.

            “Shh, Worf,” said Troi’s whisper.  “Just relax.”

            Yes.  Relax.  Drift in mind as he drifted in body.  They were swimming, pulling him through the water, letting the waves lap over him, wash away the tension, the pain….

            He relaxed, mind going blank at the insistence of his warrior’s training.  He watched the swirling, twisting figures created inside his eyelids by the sun on the water.  Worf breathed deeply.  Yes, this was pleasant.  Maybe a holodeck romance would not be so bad.  He entered a meditative state, relaxed yet alert.  A vision of lava caves formed on his eyelids.

            The images swirled faster, drawing him in.  Then they slowed, and stopped, and became sharp and clear.

            He saw Data.

 


	7. Chapter 7

7

 

 

            The android sat cross-legged on the floor, wiping a cloth over a book he held.  The vision sharpened and Worf saw more of the room.  More books.  A desk made of wood, and a chair.  Strange equipment that was unknown but somehow familiar.

            Worf’s perspective changed and he saw a woman sitting beside Data.  When she spoke, the words were unclear, but her low vibrant voice reminded him of K’Ehleyr’s, without the flippancy Worf both hated and loved.  She had dark wavy hair, long but not like Troi’s.  She laughed softly, then lowered her head.  “Data,” Worf said in his mind.  Data’s head snapped up, his gold eyes widening in surprise.

            “Worf?”  He mouthed the name and looked around.  “Where are you?”  The woman seemed not to hear either Worf or Data.

            “Here, Commander.  Here.  Look at me!”  Worf willed it to happen.

            Data tilted his head.  “I do not understand,” he mouthed.  In his vision, Worf shouted Data’s name.  The woman turned—and her jaw dropped at the sight of the Klingon’s burning eyes afloat in blue-green haze.  Data followed her gaze and saw his friend.  The woman backed up against the android, who said the only clear words Worf heard.  “He will not hurt you.”

            “Where are you?” Worf called.  Data shook his head, and the vision became swirls of color and motion.  “Data!” shouted Worf in one last attempt to reach his missing friend.

            “What did you say, Worf?” asked Crusher.

            The Klingon floundered in the water.  “I saw Data!  He is safe!  I saw him!”  The women were treading water, so he put his arms around their shoulders to keep from sinking.

            “Tell us, Worf,” Troi urged.  Then she felt a fear that nearly pushed her under.

            “Father!  _Help!”_

 

* * *

 

            “What in heaven’s name was that?” gasped Dae.

            “I am not certain,” replied the android cautiously.  “What did you see?”

            She described the hazy image.  “But I know you saw it.  It called you!”

            It was good, Data thought, that she had not seen Worf clearly, as it kept him from having to explain a Klingon.  Aloud, he confessed seeing much the same thing.  “The voice was that of one of my friends.  He is not given to mysticism or telepathy, to the best of my knowledge.”

            “Didn’t you tell him you were leaving town?”

            Data shook his head.  “My journey came up rather abruptly.”

            “Just time enough for Dad to slide on his special makeup formula, help you into your costume and throw you on the plane?”  She smiled at him again, recovered from her fright.  He agreed it was close enough to the truth and asked her to pass him another book.

            A short time later, she left him to start a fire.  If he would find it acceptable, she said.  He said yes with a brief upward turn of his lips.

 

* * *

 

            Picard, La Forge, and Sthal materialized at the reception area.  She explained the situation to Chor, who led La Forge to the magfield panel while pointing the direction of Crusher’s group.

            Sthal and Picard hurried out onto the beach.  “I will swim, Captain.  It may be I will be most useful in the water.”  He nodded and moved out at a fast trot as she submerged.

            He reached the little camp and looked around for his officers.  “Jean-Luc!” Crusher called from the water.  He raced in, made a long flat dive, and swam to her side.

            “What happened?  Where’s Worf?”  Crusher nodded farther out to sea as they struck out for Troi.  The Klingons were almost six hundred meters from the beach.

 

            As his father finished his therapy and relaxed, Alexander’s inquisitiveness took him back and forth between water and sand dunes to watch the crab-things.  They nipped at him with their claws as he picked them up, then flipped out of his hands.

            The water was clear, and Alexander found he could dive a long way, maybe because the water wasn’t very salty, but the why of it didn’t interest him.  Maybe if he took a big, deep breath, he could walk on the bottom!

            It was a tempting thing to the child, to stand on the bottom and look up to see the waves over his head, and the sky above the waves, but he remembered the warning about the blue things with the name that sounded like one of his father’s war cries during a holodeck exercise.

            He _would_ do it, just for a second or two, then come back up.  He took a breath and swam toward the bottom, seven meters away.

            He bobbed up, panting.  He needed a bigger breath.  His father would be so proud of him!  Maybe he could find a rock to bring back to Worf, to prove he made it to the bottom.  He took several deep breaths, then dove again.

            And made it!  He stood on the sand and held on to some piles of rocks to keep from surfacing.  One rock, gray and smooth, would likely come loose with only a bit of prying _._   Alexander shifted his footing to get a better grip on the rock.  He pulled and it fell into his grasp.

            Something leathery moved under his right foot, and three tendrils whipped around his calf, leaving searing pain in their wake.  He was standing on a gregchth.

            The boy struggled toward the surface.  The first shock of pain made him shout, but all he did was take in water.  He broke through, gasping and crying, but the thing on his foot wouldn’t let go and struck again.  “Father!” he shouted with his first breath.  “Help!  It hurts!”

            “Alexander!”  The Klingon pulled himself from the women and swam for his son.

            “Worf, no!” Troi shouted.  “You aren’t strong enough!  Wait for us!”  But Worf was too far away, or chose not to hear.

            The doctor hit her communicator.  “Crusher to transporter room!  Emergency transport.  Lock on to Worf and Alexander and beam them to the beach!”

            O’Brien’s regretful brogue came back.  “Sorry, Doctor.  There’s an active magnetic field at your location, and its modulations are interfering with the lock.  I’ll keep trying.”

            “Do your best, Chief, the tide’s going out.  Crusher to bridge.”  She told Riker the situation, and he contacted the captain.

 

            Crusher and Picard swam after Troi, who was halfway to the Klingons.

            Worf had his arms around his son, but the boy would not stop struggling.  The gregchth still held on, and its stings were agonizing.  “Alexander!  Stop it, I cannot hold you!”  The boy tried to oblige but another sting made him thrash in his father’s grasp.

            Worf was having trouble staying afloat as it was, tired and disoriented by the fading vision of Data.  Fatigue overtook him.

            “Klingon, hold on to consciousness.”  He felt hands holding him, strange webbed hands, and fought to open his eyes.  “I must remove the gregchth from the child, then I will try to help you.”  He nodded, too weary to reply.

            Sthal submerged once more and took hold of Alexander’s leg below the knee.  The boy kicked, so the Malèd quickly unwound a tentacle and used one foot to keep it from reattaching.  She ignored its sting and tried to soothe the infuriated creature with her mind.  It responded for only a moment, but that was enough—when the other tentacles loosened, Sthal took it to the bottom and released it.

            The Malèd shot back to the surface.  Worf was at his limit, she could tell.  He was large, heavy, and injured, from what Picard had said, and he carried the boy, still struggling, very close to his chest.  “Klingon, you must help me,” she said.  “Hold the child next to you in the water.”

            Worf tried, but Alexander twisted until he had his arms locked around his father’s neck.

            Sthal felt the tidal drag and knew she had no choice.  Pulling one of Worf’s arms around her neck, she began towing a hundred and twenty kilograms of thrashing Klingon toward shore.

 

* * *

 

            The weather had cleared and the day was the sort that tempted people up to their hips in snow to move to west.  But it was cold, more bitter winter than spring, Dae felt as she knelt at the hearth rubbing her hands together.  She arranged her kindling and logs and thought, now that air quality had improved with the switch to CNG- and battery-powered vehicles, it would be a dirty shame if real wood fires ended up outlawed.  She applied the long match.

            The kindling caught, and the base log, pine rich with sap, snapped and flared.  The young woman held her palms toward the warmth, reached out to replace the screen.

            An errant gust of wind chased itself around the chimney, blew across the top, then shot downward and overpowered the rising warm air.  It scattered kindling over the hearth and sent cinders into Dae’s eyes.  She gasped and fell, rubbing her eyes as a pine chip ignited the carpet.

            Data was suddenly beside her, closing the screen and picking her up and extinguishing the carpet all at once.  Then he carried her to the bathroom and seated her on the counter.

            He gathered supplies, then grasped her wrists.  “Dae, let me see your eyes.  I must see if your tears have sufficiently dispersed the debris.”  She protested, so he gently pulled her hands away.  “Dae, let me examine your eyes,” he said again in what he hoped was a soothing voice.

            Dae relaxed.  He angled her face toward the light, right hand cradling the back of her head as his left parted the lids of one eye.  His touch was capable as he used a swab dipped in saline solution to remove several cinder fragments.  Data turned his attention to her other eye.

            At last he took her face in both hands, brushed away the bangs that clung around her eyes, and told her to look at him, re-examining his work with a sense of accomplishment.  “Are you all right now, Dae?” he asked.  She slid off the counter and backed into the hall.  In her eyes he saw what he had hoped he would not—fear.

            _“Who the hell are you?”_

 

* * *

 

            La Forge slammed his fist on the control panel, looked at Chor, and hit his communicator.  “La Forge to Riker.  Whoever designed this unit never took transporter technology into account.  I can’t shut it off, and I can’t find the power shunt.  I’m going after the captain.  La Forge out.”

            He pounded down the beach.  Chor called, “Swimming is faster!  I will guide you!”

            The dark man veered toward the water, adjusting his scuba gear as Chor led the way down the coast.

            Sthal got Worf and Alexander closer to shore, but she was tiring.

            The humans reached her at last.  Picard and Crusher got a good grip on the Klingons and kicked in unison toward the beach.  Troi kept pace with Sthal in case the Malèd needed help.

            Chor and La Forge met them halfway to shore and took over for the captain and doctor, who fell back toward Sthal and Troi.  “Sthal, are you all right?” asked Picard.

            “Yes, Captain.  A little tired, perhaps.  How are your people?”

            “I don’t know,” replied Crusher at Picard’s look.  “Worf’s back shouldn’t be subjected to severe torsion yet.”

            Troi hauled herself onto the beach to get Worf’s chair and slid it under him, Alexander whimpering in his lap.  La Forge helped her push them out of the water while Crusher retrieved her medical tricorder.

            “I was afraid of this,” she muttered.  Alexander’s wounds, painful as they were, were minor, but Worf’s spinal cord was inflamed.  She tapped her comm badge.  “Chief, can you beam us up from here?”

            O’Brien checked his instruments.  “Aye, Doctor, the lock’s holding now.”

            “Good.  Deanna, with me.  Chief, four to beam to sickbay.  Energize.”

            Once the injured disappeared, Picard turned to the Malèdri.  “Thank you both for your help.  Do you need medical attention, Sthal?”  She was limping, and the captain noticed dark welts along her foot.

            “Yes, but there is a practitioner nearby.  It is minor.  Chor can assist me.”

            Picard thanked the Malèdri again as they left for the practitioner.  He and La Forge gathered up the forgotten picnic and beamed back to the ship.

 

            Troi coaxed Alexander to another bed so his injuries, and his father’s, could be treated.  Crusher started Worf on enzymatic therapy and hoped it could save his new spinal cord.  Russell had taken her genetronic replicator when she left, and even had it still been set up in her sickbay, Crusher was afraid to tempt fate by trying for two miracles.

            The boy, still clutching his prize, only half-listened to Troi and Crusher, but what he heard made him shudder.  If he had obeyed the rules, his father would not be in danger again.

            “Alexander,” the empath said in a gentle voice, “what happened?”

            “I swam to the bottom,” the boy sobbed.  “I wanted Father to be proud of me, that I could make it.  I found a funny rock to give him, but it was stuck, so I had to move around to get a better grip.  I…I stepped on one of those things the Malèd told us about.”

            “I see.”  Her dark eyes seemed to pierce the center of his guilt.

            “I’m sorry, Counselor!  I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, but I…I wanted Father to be proud of me.”  She held Alexander as he sobbed again.  “I only wanted him to be proud of me.”  He cried himself to sleep in her arms, and his hand uncurled.

            Troi caught the object before it could fall.  She called Crusher over and told her Alexander’s story.  “This is the ‘rock,’” she finished, and held up a perfect dirnal teardrop so large it covered her palm.

 

* * *

 

            The accident took Dae by surprise.  She felt blind, too shocked to do more than fall backward off the hearth with the smell of burning carpet in her nostrils.

            And then Data was there.  Air swished around her as he closed the fire screen and scooped her up.  His foot ground out the sparks on the rug, then suddenly she found herself on the bathroom counter.

            His hands were sure, his voice kind, and she grew calmer as he worked.  For some reason, she felt safe.  She looked where he told her to look, though her eyes always came back to his face.  Dae found she enjoyed being so close to him, and entertained the errant thought that he might kiss her.  She tried to decide if it would be welcome after only a week, then she met his eyes at his request.  And noticed something was not quite right.

            Data had been with her a week.  Simple wear should have dulled his golden makeup.  If he shaved—and since he wasn’t growing a beard, he must be shaving—that would cause some exfoliation.  But the color was still fresh and glistening.  Which meant he had been reapplying it.

Which meant Kat was right.

            Something else struck her at the same time.  He wasn’t wearing contacts, because there were no telltale lens edges.  Full corneal contacts?  No, those might look normal to anyone else, but she was a pro, she knew what those would look like, and they didn’t look like his eyes.  So he wasn’t wearing contacts.  Big deal.

            Except that nobody had gold eyes.

What if that _wasn’t_ gold makeup?

            She slid from the counter, hoping to reach her car before she found out what he had in store for her.  “Who the hell are you?” she cried, then gave up the idea of questions to run.

            Data caught her before she took two steps and turned her to face him, his hold on her upper arms firm but not painful.  He thought for a moment he heard Q laughing in the background.  “Dae…Miss Hutchins,” he said, “please, do not be frightened.  I will not hurt you.”

            “Let me go!”  She struggled hard, twisting and kicking, but his grip and stance were like iron.  It finally penetrated that she made no headway against him.  She was slender but strong, and had taken self-defense classes.  In those classes, or in joking wrestling matches with friends, Dae had always managed to dislodge her opponent at least once.  But Data was an immovable object.

            She went still and stared at him as if he was a scorpion.  Her mind shuffled through what she knew of him, his coloration, behavior, strength—she recalled the bums and knew Data could have broken her in half if he wanted, but he only held her arms.  And he looked worried, though his expression relaxed as she stopped struggling.  Her fear drained away, replaced by curiosity.

            “Who are you?”

            Data experienced, if not hopefulness, a sort of intellectual relief.  “I mean you no harm, Miss Hutchins.  Truly, I do not.”

            “Not good enough.”  Dae almost smiled, then wiped it away.  “You owe me more than that for scaring me nearly to death.”  She played shamelessly on his sense of obligation.  “And you can let me go.  I won’t run.”

            He cocked his head in doubt, but released her.  She rubbed her upper arms and asked, “Should we sit down?”  He nodded, ready to catch her if she ran again.  She only curled up on one of the sofas.  He sat opposite her, Cin racing to his lap to be petted.

            Princess stalked in.  Her green gaze went to the new person in the house, who as usual gave haven to the bullying upstart.  Feline sensibilities insulted for the last time, she snarled at Cin, who sprang to the mantel in shock.  Before he landed she usurped his place on Data’s lap.

            “Well, what do you know,” Dae breathed.  Princess, who was Minnie’s and Minnie’s alone, sat on the lap of someone Dae wasn’t sure she could trust, purring like an outboard motor as Data obligingly scratched behind her ears.

            Dae had learned the hard way to trust the cats’ instincts when her own were confused.  “Well,” she said, and tried to suppress a vocal quaver.  “Who are you and what do you want?”

            She would give him a hearing!  Now came the hard part—what to say?  Logically, he should tell her nothing, leave once darkness fell, and be far more careful in future.

            Logic, however, was what had landed him here in the first place.  And she did deserve clarification of his behavior, if for no other reason than her charity.  Evasions now were too much like lies.  On the other hand, it was easy to say he wished to trust her, but could he?  She might well call the authorities, have him taken away as a lunatic.

            He chose to trust her.  In his time, most people were trustworthy; until being here cost him the option to trust without reservation, he did not know how much he valued it.

            After all, he had trusted Lore.  Twice.  Did Dae deserve less?

            But first he asked a question of his own.  “Why are you willing to listen to me?”

            Her lips twitched.  She even chuckled.  “You said you don’t mean me harm.  I’m still scared, but really, any time this week you could have done anything in the world to me, including murder.  Instead, you’ve been polite, courteous, and almost painfully eager to please.  That’s one thing in your favor.

            “Two, you’re different.  By no stretch of the imagination are you Mr. Joe Average.”

            “Who is Mr. Joe Average?” Data asked, his expression earnest.

            “There isn’t one,” she said.  “That’s what I mean.  Nobody’s completely average, but most people have some average-seeming traits.  Not you.

            “You’re above average in politeness.  You’re below average in a sense of humor.”  She smiled again to soften the blunt statement.  “You’re well above the average for male neatness.  And you’re way too fast, although you have my sincere thanks for that particular difference.

            “That very original eye color, I see now, doesn’t come from contact lenses.  I suspect your equally original skin color has nothing to do with makeup.  And you’re stronger than anybody I’ve ever met, but you look like I should have been able to take you down at least once.  Not average, all across the board.  Different.  Different interests me.

            “Three, you’re cat people, and I’ve never met a cat person yet who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  So you have one chance to explain yourself.  I suggest you make it good.”

            Data processed her words, tone of voice, expression, integrated them with assumptions regarding her level of tolerance for the unusual, recalled the good omen of Asimov’s name—

            And spilled his proverbial guts.

 

* * *

 

            “Computer, chief engineer’s log,” ordered La Forge.  It twittered readiness.  “Resume.”

            _“The Malèdri are really an amazing species, intelligent, peaceful, and for amphibians they have a very dry sense of humor.  We’re enlarging the Malèdri habitat to accommodate their tresh, too.  Sthal says the tresh are excited by the idea of space travel but prefer to have their friends close by.  Their relationship is almost symbiotic, definitely not like masters and pets._

_“Lieutenant D’Sora and I are still trying to find exactly the right sensor parameters to search effectively for Commander Data.  None of the probes have found anything yet, which means we’re still not looking for the right things.  Or that there’s nothing left to find.”_

 

            Leaving the bar, La Forge took his synthale to a table and stared out a viewport.  Data was out there somewhere, adrift or imprisoned or who knew what.  And for him to vanish without a sign….  La Forge sipped his ale as his depression deepened.

            “May I join you, Commander?”  The engineer started at the sound of D’Sora’s voice.  He was pleased they’d become more like friends during the search for Data, and she was welcome company.  She said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  She stood across from him waiting for a sign, so he smiled a little and she slid into a chair.

            “Don’t worry about it.  I doubt I’d have heard a stampede of N’ilonin armorbulls.”

            She chuckled and followed his gaze into the darkness outside.  “What does it look like to you, Commander, really?”

            La Forge huffed out a sigh.  Everyone asked it sooner or later, even Data, whose vision was just as unique.  But there was something about the way D’Sora asked, as if she sought a deeper answer.  “It sure beats being blind, but it has its bad points.”  He described how his vision differed from normal human sight, based on the brief minutes of that gift Riker had given him long ago.  How people and things were energy patterns, radiation, and thermal discharges.  How the darkness was bright with E-band emissions, infrared and ultraviolet, the sparkling residue of the Big Bang.  He spoke, too, of the constant pain, but without the rancor one might expect.

            “But I can’t really _see_ the twinkling of a single star.  I can’t see a rainbow as anything but frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum.”  He stopped.

            “And for all I can see…I can’t find my best friend.  Not even a glimmer that says, ‘I used to be Data.’  Damn it,” he muttered, “there should be _something_ out there.  There has to be.”

            D’Sora studied the chief engineer.  He looked out the window again and she saw him strain to find some clue, though they were light years from the right place.  “I’m sorry—”

            “It’s okay, Lieutenant,” he cut in, not rudely, “not your fault.  Or mine, or anybody else’s.  I just wish we had something to go on, instead of the nothing we have.  And I know this is hard on you, too.”  He took a calming sip of ale, and looked more closely at his tablemate.

            She was wearing a skirt and shoulder-laced tunic that matched her eyes, and her hair was loose.  He grinned and asked who the lucky guy was.  He wished for a slim minute it was for him because, now that he knew D’Sora better, he thought she was a very nice, very attractive woman, but his bad luck with the ladies was legendary.  Most of the time he never even bothered.

            She tilted her head at him in a gesture much like Data’s and said, “What guy?”

            “The one you’re all dressed up for.”

            D’Sora glanced down and said, “What, this old thing?”  Then she very solemnly winked at him.  He laughed.  They chatted a while about nothing in particular, both of them hoping to put aside their worries about the missing android for a time.  At last she said she was going back to her quarters to try to sleep.  La Forge said he knew just what she meant.

            “May I walk you to your quarters, Jenna?”  She paused as she stood, just for a flicker, at the tone of his voice, then smiled.  He assumed that meant yes.

            At her door she said, “Thank you, Commander—”

            “Call me Geordi.”  Her eyebrows rose.  “And tell me something.”

            “What do you want to know…Geordi?”

            His lips curved into a smile.  “I’d like to know if you’re…how you’d like the idea of…whether you’d consider…”  His voice trailed off and his shoulders slumped.  He was trying too hard, and he wanted to get it right, just this once.

            D’Sora demonstrated the almost uncanny perception reserved for two minds with but a single thought.  “Something more than friendly conversation?”

            “Um…yeah.”

            “Well, Geordi,” and she smiled at him, though all he really saw was a slight temperature increase where the smile parted her lips, “why don’t you come in so we can talk about it?”  She backed through her door, holding out one hand to him.

            He hesitated a second, then followed her and let the door slide shut behind them.  She looked at him and he said, “You realize, Jenna, that this may only be happening because of Data?”

            “I’ve thought about that,” she admitted.  “And you were right, this has been harder on me than I expected.”  Her lips tasted sweet, and clung to his for a long minute.  “But what if it isn’t just about Data?”

            “I suppose,” he said as she dimmed the lights, “we should find out.”          





	8. Chapter 8

8

 

 

            The android told her almost everything, leaving out only Q, the details of his being tested, and his being from the future, since the latter would be pollution of the timeline.

            That she neither laughed nor called the police was encouraging.

            Dae thought at first it was the largest load of bilge it had ever been her privilege to hear, yet she found it more and more difficult to disbelieve him.  His manner, his attitude, even his body language, all shouted his honesty.

            She took a deep breath.  “Okay.  You claim you’re an android.  Prove it.”

            He sighed.  There was one very simple way.  He only hoped it would not frighten her.

            With a moment’s misgiving, he pulled off his sweatshirt.  Her eyes widened, more at his gold color than anything else, because in every other way he had a normal male chest.

            She thought it was a rather nice chest.  Then he opened his thoracic access plate so she could see the circuitry, the wires and conduit instead of biological organs.  Dae’s eyes and mouth made a trio of perfect, surprised O’s.  She got up and sat beside him.  “May I?”  He nodded.

            First she closed her eyes and placed her palm flat on what should have been his sternum.  She noted the gentle motion of his chest as he breathed, the action of his central fluid pump like a heartbeat.  Then she rubbed her hand lightly over the bioplast sheeting.  Data could tell the difference between his epidermal covering and human skin, but Dae touched her own skin, and his, several times in succession, shaking her head at how alike they felt.

            Next she traced her fingers down to the edge of the aperture.  Fascinated, she satisfied herself of its reality by going all around it by touch, and next took one of his hands.  Turning it palm up, she studied the patterns on his skin, felt his pulse, even examined his nails.

            She pulled him toward her to study his eyes, noting the way his irises contracted and dilated, the tracery of capillaries, his lashes.  She ran her fingers through his hair, pulled on it a little as if testing how well it was attached.  She even, with a one-sided little smile, asked him to stick out his tongue and say “ah.”

            Her final action was to close his access plate and watch the seam in the bioplast sheeting disappear.  It left behind a smooth-skinned, unbroken, undeniably male chest.

            While the exploration was nowhere near as comprehensive as a routine diagnostic, rarely had he been touched with more reverence, nor seen such unalloyed wonder in a pair of human eyes.  He looked at Dae, who still held his hand.

            She squeezed it and looked at him with a dawning smile.  “Ye gods, Data,” she said in an awed whisper.  “You’re miraculous.”

            He blinked.  “While I have occasionally been referred to as an exceptional piece of cybernetic engineering, no one has ever called me ‘miraculous’ before.”  Dae laughed while he put his sweatshirt on again.

            “Next question.  You said someone named Noonien Soong was your father.  Is he the man who built you?”  Data nodded.  “If I bet I _wouldn’t_ find him in the phone book, would I win?”

            “You are correct, Miss Hutchins.”

            “Call me Dae,” she said.  “And then you can tell me where you come from.  Or maybe I should ask _when_ , because I know we haven’t got what it takes to come up with anyone like you.”

            Her words gave him pause.  Even if she was willing to believe in time travel, was he justified in giving her concrete proof?  He cocked his head.  “You believe I am an android?”

            “Of course!  Assuming I accept the old saw about believing only half of what you see—”  Dae patted his shoulder.  “Well, what I’ve seen is more than enough to knock my doubts into a cocked hat.  Either you’re telling the truth, or I’m going nuts.  Not that that’s impossible,” she admitted with a broad grin, “but why assume the worst?”

            “I cannot fault your logic.  Still, why believe I am not a contemporary construct?”

            She said again that no current technology could explain him.  The sophistication required for his brain alone, she said, if it was attainable at all, came in packages far larger than his six-foot frame.

            “That alone implies decades, maybe even centuries, more advancement.  And the rest of your construction?”  She shook her head.  “Not anytime soon, I don’t think.”

            “But why must I be from the future?  Why might I not be a present-day android from another planet?”

            He watched her turn the idea over in her mind.  “Nope.  If aliens knew enough to make you human in form, why not in coloration?  It’s not like you blend in, is it?”  She raised one disbelieving eyebrow.  “It’s more likely to me that you come from a time and place where your gold skin would be easily accepted.”

            Dae shifted in her seat, curled one leg under and rested her cheek on her fist.  “I dunno, maybe I’ve read Asimov’s books too many times, but you remind me of one of his humaniform robots.  I want to think that, somewhere down the road, humanity will get its act together and get better, and you look like the product…no, the child, of a better brand of human.”

            In his most didactic manner, Data replied, “That is not a very logical argument, Dae.”

            “I know, it’s gut feeling and wishful thinking.”  Her smile was puckish.  “So, Data-from-another-planet-or-possibly-the-future, what exactly are we going to do with you?”  He blinked.

 

            They talked a long time about what he was going to do, and how he planned to do it.

            As she pointed out, Data’s resemblance to a walking special effect would make doing research difficult.  It might lead to jail.  At worst he could end up the subject of research, rather than the researcher.  From her shudder, the android doubted he would enjoy it.

            Dae wondered how the people who sent him leave him so unprepared for his task.  Or were they testing his resourcefulness as well?  He started to answer, then closed his mouth.

            “Right,” she went on.  “Anyway, what kinds of things do you think you need?”

            “Primarily,” he said, “money.”  Data believed he could cope with the strictures of his test with sufficient funds, which would be converted a place to stay, transportation, and a computer adapted to his needs and capabilities, with storage capacity far greater than the norm.

            Dae offered him her home.

            “I beg your pardon?” Data asked.

            “Stay here.  For a while, at least, until you get on your feet, decide how to earn some cash.  Unless…”  She paused, then went on in a quiet rush, “Unless you don’t like me well enough to put up with me.”

            Data looked startled at the idea.  “I cannot like or dislike anyone in the sense you mean, since my programming does not include the ability to experience emotions.  However, I do become used to recurrent sensory input patterns, the net effect of which is analogous to liking, or friendship.”  He looked at her with particular seriousness.  “I have begun to become accustomed to your input patterns.  I would like to remain here, for as long as you will allow.”

            “Fine,” Dae grinned.  “And I’ll give some thought to your real first problem.”  He looked confused.  “The way you look.  You still won’t be able to go anywhere like that.”  She yawned.  “I do makeup, for pete’s sake, I should be able to come up with something.  Let me sleep on it.”

            He assented, then asked if he might use some of her oil paints.  Dae frowned.  “Sure, they’re in the office closet, but I don’t think they’ll look very natural.”  One eyebrow twitched.

            “Ah.  A joke.”  Data smiled for a few seconds, an eerie expression, in Dae’s opinion.  “I did not intend to modify my appearance, only to engage in one of my customary artistic endeavors.”  She opened one closet door and showed him more drawing paper, an easel, several prepared canvases and a supply of oils.  Wishing him a pleasant and productive evening, and reminding him to turn the clocks ahead an hour for daylight savings, she went to bed.

            He prepared a workspace, then set the clocks, wondering how one saved daylight.

 

            Data decided to paint the scene that greeted him when he opened his eyes here, the three faces and the sky and the clouds.  The sense of depth he achieved gave the painting a vertiginous aspect he found quite intriguing, never having suffered from vertigo.

            Putting the canvas aside to dry, he continued with pastels, beginning with the specter of Worf, an image suited to the medium.  Then he drew his friends, and Spot.  The android experienced a sense of dislocation and let his memory drift as he worked.

            So many memories, of people and places, things he had experienced—all so distant now.  Was this homesickness?  Data thought it must be.

            It occurred to him for the first time that, regardless of the test’s result, Q might not send him home, forcing him instead to return to his own time by surviving the wars and natural disasters and suspicions of the intervening centuries.  If Q’s reproduction of a courtroom from the post-atomic horror was accurate—and knowing Q, Data could not doubt it—the android would have to hide for several centuries to avoid either changing history or being destroyed.

            Was that a thrill of fear, or only the passage of an errant positron along his neural net?

            Ridiculous thought.  He could not feel.

 

            Dae fell asleep thinking about Data’s problems and woke Easter morning with a reasonable solution.  Dressed in a pale yellow sweater and slacks, she found Data working on an abstract oil on the easel and a pastel landscape on her drafting table—at the same time.

            Fascinated by another demonstration of his uniqueness, she watched a few minutes.  “I see you’ve been busy.  What would you like to look like?”

            Data spun in the chair.  It reminded him with a positronic quiver of similar actions on the bridge.  “Yes,” he acknowledged, “and, I beg your pardon?”

            “Sorry.  _Who_ would you like to look like?  Anybody you drew?”  Glancing at him for permission, Dae sat down and studied his work.  She put aside the picture of Worf, then picked up again.  “Is this who we saw the other day?”

            He nodded, and she continued to leaf through the drawings.

            “They’re all dressed a lot like you were.  A uniform, it looks like.  You in the military?”

            “Not precisely.  Starfleet is as dedicated to exploration and scientific study as to defense, more so, although there have, regrettably, been many occasions when combat was required.”

            “Well, it sounds a bit more hopeful where you come from, anyway.  I take it these are your friends.”

            “Yes.  My crewmates, and my friends.”  He scooted his chair next to hers and pointed out Picard and Riker, Crusher, Troi, the blind La Forge.

            “You miss them.”  It was not a question.  “How long have you known them?”

            “Almost five years.”  He refrained, for once, from giving her precise figures down to the second.  “Geordi was my first friend, and is my best friend.”

            She gave him an odd look and asked how old he was.  His answer shocked her.  “You’re thirty, and you’ve only had friends for five years?  Where were you the first twenty-five?”

            “Being studied, going through Starfleet Academy, and serving on various starships.”

            “And nobody else, in all that time, was your friend?”  He shook his head.  “Data, that’s terrible!  How could you not have friends?  Granted I haven’t known you long, but you’re a very likable guy, in fact I think you’re very sweet.  How could people not like you?”

            It was a question with no satisfactory answer, for all the years he had asked it.  He had observed the _Tripoli_ crew, and later his classmates and the crews of his other postings.  Making friends, _being_ friends.  But he was ever the observer, ever removed.  Once he found friendship on the _Enterprise_ , he stopped asking.  Yet because Dae asked, he thought about it once more.

            “Perhaps because I am incapable of experiencing emotion, no one thought friendship would be important to me.  Or perhaps,” he said, his calm voice holding something like sadness, “because I am not human, no one thought me worth the trouble.  A curiosity, a mobile computer in the shape of a man.  Why should anyone want a computer as a friend?”  He raised his eyes.  “Perhaps they thought me unworthy to be their friend, because I am so fundamentally different.”

            Tears spilled down Dae’s cheeks.  Data saw them clearly before she pulled him from the chair and threw her arms around him.  A response was called for, but he had no idea what to do with his hands, and at last rested them on her shoulders.  “Idiots,” he heard her whisper.  “Stupid, cruel, blind idiots!  No more brains than God gave a gnat.”

            A few minutes later she backed away, cleared her throat and wiped at her eyes before shoving her hands rather emphatically into her pockets.  “Well,” she said, “guess idiocy hasn’t completely died out where you’re from.  Pity.  Anyway, you never answered my question.”  At his attempt to dispute her words, she rephrased, “My first question, I meant.  About who to look like.  Think about it while I get breakfast.

            “And no, it isn’t going to be oatmeal.  Really, Data, we’ve got to expand your culinary repertoire.”  Dae headed toward the kitchen, obviously expecting him to join her.  So he did.

 

            Davida Janice Hutchins shivered inside.  When Data described his long isolation, she knew precisely what he meant, for she had gone through much the same thing.

            She had been both chubby and extremely smart, neither of which traits endeared her to the other children, and she still recalled the endless teasing.

It was one reason she read so much.  It beat sitting on the sidelines of whatever game they were playing, knowing she would be left out.  Books let her hide the hurt.

            She became quiet, introverted, immersed in the worlds on the printed page instead of the one she found when she looked up.  Eventually she found an interest in art, which led to theatrical makeup, though only as a hobby at first.

            Dae’s adolescent growth spurt, and an evaluation of her bad habits, took care of the weight problem.  She joined the drama club after her English class read “The Taming of the Shrew” aloud and she had fun as Katherine.  Her poise increased, and her confidence; she found her then-meager talents as a makeup artist in demand, and studied hard to improve them.

            To her amazement, she discovered in her junior year of high school that she was pretty, and popular, too.  Not that the chubby, bedeviled little girl inside believed it for a moment.

            She did have a few good friends now, gained with a lot of caution on Dae’s part, and those attachments allowed a lot of leeway.  But pass that point, even accidentally, and the relationship was gone for good, something that was especially true of her rare romances.  She was a loner who had to push herself to break the habits of half a lifetime.

            It was those early memories his story touched.  She recognized something of herself in him, the same separation from the world at large, and it made her pull the android into her arms, not so much to comfort him, because she understood he needed none, but to comfort herself.

            And now, feeling rather foolish, she offered to teach him how to make pancakes.

 

* * *

 

            The _Enterprise_ arrived at Brethal with the Malèdri scientists and their tresh colony.

            Brethal had five continents and numerous smaller islands, most marked by old signs of volcanism.  A large polar icecap covered an apparently lifeless sub-continental mass in the north, and several smaller icecaps floated at the other pole.  A broad tropical band spanned the equator, with temperate zones between it and the poles.  There were no overt signs of sentient life, and Troi sensed nothing to the contrary.

            The Malèdri scientists, aided by the Aquatic Sciences department and La Forge, picked a sheltered bay on a southern continent for their first test.  The water was rich in compatible trace minerals and planktonic life, indicating the two planets had similar origins, and levels of salinity and soluble gasses would need only slight modifications.

            The bay itself was almost circular, with a rocky bottom suitable for the tresh and more rocks that formed a sea wall to one side.  A glittering stream bisected the beach, a crescent of sand that shone like crushed diamonds and made a perfect base of operations.

            The aquaforming dome would sit in the center of the bay.  La Forge beamed down with the scientists to help set it up.  Thanks to some pre-assembly in the main cargo bay, he estimated it would only take a few hours.  Sthal, her foot healed, was there, along with the solicitous Threrr.  The engineer concluded they were pair-bonded.

            D’Sora beamed down a little later and found La Forge directing the assembly.  “Hello, Lieutenant.  How’d you sleep?”  She blushed.  He knew perfectly well she hadn’t slept, since he hadn’t either.  “Here to save us from the sand fleas?” he asked as he swatted at his calf.

            She shook her head.  “Sensors have picked up a colony of large creatures headed this way, Commander, swimming just below the surface.  ETA is six hours at their present speed.”

            He called out a few more instructions, turned and asked, “How large is large?”

            “We can’t distinguish much,” she answered, “but our best guesses?  Average length, forty meters, with an average mass of thirty-six thousand kilograms.”

            La Forge whistled.  “That’s large.  Any indications of higher intelligence?”

            The security officer said if the creatures thought the way most sentients did, Troi had sensed no sign of it.  So far, they seemed no more intellectually advanced than the residents of Picard’s fish tank.

            D’Sora also said the scans were imprecise regarding the exact configuration of the creatures.  “I’ll beam back and try to increase sensor resolution.  It’s strange, we didn’t have any trouble with our long-range scans, but now it’s as if there’s some kind of scattering field.  We didn’t see them until they broke the surface.”

            “Ask Data—” he began, then stopped with a sigh.  “See if the doc will let you talk to Worf,” he suggested at last.  “Maybe he’ll have an idea.  Let me know what you find out.

            “And Jenna?  Anything about Data?”  She shook her head.  “Just thought I’d ask.”

 

            Crusher welcomed D’Sora’s visit.  “Maybe you can get him out of his funk, Lieutenant,” she said, her voice dry.  “He’s behaving more like a spoiled child than Chief of Security.”  There was an ominous growl from the ward.  “And if he does that again, I’ll be very tempted to paralyze his vocal cords!  Not that I ever would,” she assured the wide-eyed officer.

            The Klingon lay prone, his head level with his feet.  “Lieutenant!” he called, and waved away the nurse who bore the brunt of his displeasure.  “It is good to see you.  How does the search for Data proceed?”

            D’Sora was forced to report the frustrating lack of progress, then got to the purpose of her visit.  “If you have modified the sensors on the probes to search for Data more efficiently,” he suggested, “similar modifications on the main sensors should be equally serviceable on biological life.”  She berated herself for not thinking of it.  “It is possible to become so involved in a problem,” said Worf, “that answers are too close to see easily.  Besides, I have enjoyed the visit.  Feel free to return with progress updates.”

            She started to leave, but he asked how she was coping with the increased responsibilities.  She said it was hard work, if rewarding.  He agreed, “Attempting to fulfill the obligations of one whom you…respect is not easy.”  He thought his choice of words had been presumptuous, but her shy nod set that idea to rest.  “Mistakes loom on all sides, and one fears looking foolish.”

            “That’s exactly it, sir,” she agreed with a grin.  “I never expected to get the _Enterprise_ , it was too much to hope for, and I keep expecting to ruin it.  It’s a wonderful challenge, but part of me wishes you’d picked someone else.  For a second or two.”  She left for the bridge, and Worf closed his eyes for a nap, thinking he had made a fine choice.

 

            D’Sora took over the tactical panel long enough to input the modifications and aim the sensors into the Brethallian sea.  The creatures were vague no more, large and finned with a pair of long appendages growing just in front of the fins.  When they surfaced, the readings showed they breathed atmosphere.  She ran a file search to find similar life-forms and hailed the planet.

            “Commander La Forge, they’re tentacled plesiosaurs with blowholes.”

            Dead silence, then his voice came back, “Once more, slowly, Lieutenant.”

            She explained that the best match for the creatures physically was a cross between a giant squid, a whale, and a prehistoric Terran aquasaur.  They had slowed a bit but still swam toward the bay at a good clip.  “Thanks for the notice, Lieutenant.  I’ll tell the Malèdri; notify the transporter room, in case they decide to give up on this site.”


	9. Chapter 9

9

 

 

            “Time to work, Data.  Who are you going to be?”

            “I do not understand.  I am, and will continue to be, myself.”

            She explained again that she intended to conceal his golden hue with makeup.  She had several colors of cosmetic contact lenses on hand, so he could choose a new eye color.  But unless he was content to stay in her house for the duration of his visit, he had to decide what skin shade he would use, and what hair color.

            “Now,” she pressed.  “Have you decided?”

            It was strange, so like the question he had asked his daughter when she was still neuter.  And her choice bore little family resemblance to Data, far less than his own to Dr. Soong.

            And then he knew.  “I will look like my father.”

            Dae wanted him to describe Soong, but he thought it would be easier to show her and picked up the sketchpad.  As he worked, he told her he had not considered makeup as a solution.  “Which is rather a peculiar oversight on my part since, when a recent mission called for Captain Picard and me to masquerade as members of another humanoid species, our natural pigmentation was modified by a semi-permanent chemical colorant.  Dr. Crusher had to formulate it especially for my epidermal covering, since I do not exfoliate.”

            The pictures in Soong’s files were of either the child prodigy he had been, or a graying man in late middle age, images retrieved from Omicron Theta.  Of Soong in his prime, the age that Data physically resembled, the android had found no visual record.  So he used the young Soong’s hair, skin and eye color on his own features and found the results satisfactory.

             “Nice face,” Dae smiled.  “I think I like him.  Now, let me get my bag of tricks.”

            It was actually a large box filled with an array of pencils, puffs, jars, brushes and sponges.  She carried a teacup of water in the other hand, and a white T-shirt with a V-neck lay on her shoulder.  Dae handed him the T-shirt, humming as she set out her supplies on the drafting table.  After he changed, she sat him in the desk chair and moved the lamps around until the lighting was even and without shadow, then examined his face one more time.

            She had him close his eyes and he felt her fingers pressing all over his face.  When he asked what she was doing, Dae said she was getting to know his bone structure.  “I do not have bones,” he corrected her.  “My substructure is artificial in nature.”

            Sighing, Dae said, “I know, you don’t have a calcium-based skeletal system, you don’t have muscle tissue, et cetera, et cetera.  But you do have a rigid internal structure and I can feel something like muscle under your skin.  I have to call it something, so why not what I’m used to?  And you’d better get used to it, too.  You keep pointing out your differences from flesh-and-blood people,” and she grinned, “you’re liable to get into trouble.”

            His hair got special attention.  “Your hairline is almost too definite.”  She picked up a comb and brush and experimented with various styles.  “It feels like mine, but it doesn’t act like it.  And it lacks highlights, and depth.  Can you make your hairline a little less even?”

            He tried, but the results still looked unnatural.  “Never mind.  I can spray in some highlights and lowlights, and draw in some unevenness; it’ll do in a pinch.  I’ll have to see what I have in the way of hair and caps.”  At his curious look, she said, “Net caps and fake hair, so I can build you a wig.  Ordering one takes a while.”  She got a sly little smile on her face.  “I’d like to take you for a walk today, so you can see the neighborhood.”

            “I would like that, Dae.  I have not even seen the façade of your home.”  There was a wistful note in his voice.  At home, he had a whole ship to roam, and whole new worlds.  Here, he only went outside when he fed Malta or helped Dae with the gate.  And it was always dark, lest his odd appearance be noted.  Until she suggested going out, he had not realized how limited he had been.

            She said, “That does it.  We are definitely taking a walk today.  Here, pick your color.”

            There were lenses in various shades of green, brown, and blue, and Data looked at his father’s portrait again.  “I will use these.”  Suiting action to words, he put in the blue lenses and blinked to seat them.  Dae simply nodded approval, then got down to business.

            She picked up a silk sponge, dampened it a little, and used it to apply just enough cake foundation to hide his natural glow, as she called it.  She covered every square inch of skin from his hairline to underneath his collar, including inside his ears.

            Next she did his highlights.  His skin, she said, had no areas significantly lighter or darker than any other.  “Flesh-and-bloods usually have lots of variation in skin tone.  The goal with your makeup,” and her voice became tutorial, “will be to provide variations that look as natural as possible.  When you look at humans, where do you notice light being most strongly reflected?”

            “The nose, especially the bridge,” he replied.  “Cheekbones, chin, and to a lesser extent, just below the eyebrows.  Will you also shadow under my…cheekbones?”

            “Head of the class, Data,” she said.  “But we don’t want you to look like stage actor, so realism is the key.”  She kept working as they talked, hushing him only to do his chin and mouth.  The highlights, two shades lighter than the base, and shadows two shades darker, she blended in with a clean damp sponge.

            “Okay,” she said.  “Now to add a little color.”  She traded the sponges for a rouge brush, chose a shade midway between pink and peach, put a touch of dry rouge on his cheekbones and blended it back into his hairline.  She shadowed the inner corners of his eyes a very faint dark blue, to give the illusion of blood just beneath the surface, then used a fine pointed brush to give him a tiny birthmark under his right eye.

            The phone rang.

            “Rats.”  Dae set down the brush.  “Oh, well, I guess my back can use the break.  Hello?  Collect from Madagascar?…Yes!…Mom, how are you?…Wait, I’m in the middle of something, let me hit the speaker.”  Dae brought the phone over and touched a button.  “Hi, Mom.”

            “Cissy, you know I hate being on a speaker,” said Minnie, her voice lower in pitch than Dae’s and still holding traces of her native Oklahoma drawl.

            Dae made a face.  “And you know I hate being called ‘Cissy,’ so I guess we’re even.  How are you, Mom?  I mean really.”  She picked up the brush again to apply another small birthmark.

            “I’m fine, honey,” Minnie said through the static.  “This is a beautiful place.  I’m going to miss it, but Sam’s due in any day.  He’s still working on permits for us to go to India.”

            “I still don’t know if that’s a good idea.  The stuff we’re hearing makes me think it’ll do more harm than good.  Khan _is_ one of them, and as a group they’ve made no bones about how they feel about their ‘inferiors’—”

            “Now don’t do that,” Minnie broke in.  “I may not be better than anyone else, but by thunder I am no one’s inferior!  And if it’s my turn to go, well, we’ve been all through this.  Honey, these people need help, desperately.  Mercy, the things I’ve seen!”

            Minnie went on to describe some of those things.  Everywhere she had traveled with POWR, the “supermen” ruled in luxury, their sycophants and hangers-on as well.  The common people ended up where they always did—at the bottom of the pyramid: enslaved, famine-stricken, homeless, and hopeless, stripped of every atom of human decency and dignity.

            But some refused to fall into the trap built by hopelessness and degradation.  In every village there were a few willing to help distribute food and clothing, who went into the worst slums and brought the injured to POWR’s aid stations, who tried to stop the soldiers and their endless rapaciousness.  Sometimes they succeeded.  Sometimes they died.  But they tried.

            “I can’t leave these people to this,” Minnie said.  “I can’t.  There’s an answer, and I have to work until I find it.  Do you understand, honey?”

            “Yes.”  Dae’s voice broke.  “But that doesn’t mean I miss you any less.”  Minnie sniffed a little herself, then asked Dae if anything new or interesting was going on.

            “Well, now that you mention it, yes.  I have a roommate.”

            “Oh?”  Her mother sounded wary.  “Anybody I know?  It isn’t Kehoe, is it?  Dae, you know he doesn’t care for you, you mustn’t keep that torch burning!”

            “Oh, Mom!” Dae groaned, “I don’t have a torch burning, certainly not for Kee.  That’s long over.  No, this is a new friend.”  She grinned at Data.

            “What’s her name?”

            “His name is Data.”  The silence that greeted her remark spoke volumes.  Dae pictured her mother’s expression and grinned wider.

            Minnie wanted to know exactly where and when Dae had met this “Data” person, and why they felt the need to cohabit.  From her prim use of the word, the android got the distinct impression that Minnie assumed he and Dae were intimate.

            The younger Hutchins told the story as it had happened, then said on a sudden inspiration, “He’s a computer specialist, that’s why he’s nicknamed Data, but he’s between jobs right now and thought he’d give acting a try.”  Her mother asked what his real name was, and Dae, after a split second of mental fumbling, said, “His name’s Dana Oliver.  Data, say hi to my mom.”

            Data stared as if she possessed multiple cranial units; however, to avoid annoying Minnie further, he said, “How do you do, Mrs. Hutchins.”

            Minnie asked several pointed questions to satisfy her curiosity.  He was his usual polite, well-spoken self and she seemed at last to find him acceptable.  “You sound like a very nice man, Mr. Oliver.  I wish you luck finding a job.  Dae, honey, you’re going to have a phone bill big enough to choke a horse!  I’d better go.”

            “Okay, Mom.  I’m glad you called.  Happy Easter, and I love you.”

            “I love you, too, sweetie.  You take care, now.  You, too, Mr. Oliver.”

            “I will, Mrs. Hutchins.  And I wish you luck in your work.”  Minnie hung up, and Dae took the brush again, but before she could use it, Data caught her arm.  “‘Dana Oliver’?”

            “Look,” she said, the soul of reason, “most people here have first and last names, and folks will want to know yours.  I know should have let you choose one, but I didn’t have time.”

            “But why—?”

            “Because ‘Dana’ is close to your real name so I figured it wouldn’t be hard to get used to.  And…well, have you read Asimov’s Robot books?”  He shook his head.  “When you do—I’ve got them all—you’ll know the rest of the reason.  Now do we sit here holding hands, or shall I finish your makeup?”  Her smile was as sunny as the light streaming through the windows.

            “Perhaps it is not what I would have chosen,” he admitted as he leaned back, “but it is acceptable.  Is there anything else I should know about myself?”  She apologized again and asked what kind of background story he had designed; they fine-tuned it as she applied a neutral pinkish-beige color to his lips.  Then she gave his face a once-over, decided to leave his lashes and brows until last, and did his hands.

            Since few men wore gold nail polish, Dae said, she attached opaque fake nails over his own, then trimmed and filed them.  Using the same techniques she had on his face, she made up his hands, and took the cosmetics up to his elbows.

            “Hmm.  That’ll work out okay,” she said, referring to the hair on his arms.  “I thought I’d have to mascara it, but against the makeup it looks blond.  If you want to wear short sleeves, we’ll just do your arms to the shoulders.”

            Dae finished by using an eyebrow brush and dark-brown cake mascara to darken his eyelashes and brows, and drew some human imperfection at his hairline with a chisel-pointed eyebrow pencil.  Colored hair sprays added realistic variations to his hair.  To keep the makeup from smudging, she sprayed a liquid sealer over his hands and wrists and around his collar line.  She put her equipment away while the fixative dried.

            She helped him put on a long sleeved T-shirt without smearing his makeup, then combed his hair again and led him, eyes closed at her request, to her room. When he stood before the three-way mirror, she turned on the lights.  “Data, meet Dana Oliver.”

            Seeing himself as a Romulan had been surprising, though the full effect had been hard to appreciate in a hand mirror.  But now…now, even with these primitive and makeshift materials, it was enough to make him gasp in awe.  He might have been seeing his father, except there were subtle differences from the painting, slight variations that individualized him from his idea of Soong, and he could do nothing but gape at his reflection.

            His transformation took two hours.  Dae said that if he could paint himself as quickly as he did canvas, it would take no time at all.  She watched in delight as his expression shifted, from awe to shock to something like happiness.  “There are other products and techniques,” she said, “but I think this is a good first try.  What do you think?”

            “I have always wondered how I might appear if I were human,” Data replied, spellbound by his reflection.  “But it seemed foolish to be curious.  I find myself intrigued by the results of your experiment.”  He projected great eagerness though there was no emotion behind it.  “May we go for our walk, Dae?”

            With a gentle smile, she said, “Let me get my keys.  Meet you at the front door.”  And she did, and bowed Data into the dazzling sunshine.  A breeze ruffled his hair.

 

* * *

 

            The creatures, dubbed plesiapods by Aquatic Sciences, arrived the night before the aquaforming lab began operations.  They clustered at the mouth of the bay and watched with what one Malèd called interested detachment.  Troi received no impression of sentience.

            Based on the climate, the lack of land predators, and the agreement of the Malèdri, crew shore leave continued on Brethal.

 

            Riker boarded the transporter pad.  “Ready, Commander,” O’Brien acknowledged.

            The first officer grinned.  “You’re sure you have the right coordinates, Mr. O’Brien?  _Inside_ the dome?  I’m not dressed for a swim.”

            The transporter chief smiled back.  “Aye, sir, your feet’ll stay dry.  Energizing.”

            He materialized in the center of the dome and looked for La Forge, who greeted him with a wave.

            The system was in its eighth hour of operation, the engineer reported, with promising results.  A column of fresh water centered on the dome rose toward the surface at the expected rate, separated from the encircling salt water by surface tension that defied tidal forces.  Plankton levels remained normal.  In less than three days, the entire bay would be desalinated and oxygenated, and the second part of the experiment, using the tresh, could begin.

            “Very good, Mr. La Forge,” Riker complemented him.  “How much of this is due to your innovation?”

            He got a shy smile in reply.  “Some but not all, sir.  The Malèdri systems are quite efficient in their own right.  I just made a few suggestions.”

            “Good ones,” agreed Sthal as she approached from one of the saline monitors.  “Commander La Forge has an innate understanding of our engineering methods.  Should he ever desire to leave Starfleet, we offer him a place with the Malèdri.  I would even consent to train him in the ways of the tresh.”  The offer made La Forge grin.

            Riker said he was glad the _Enterprise_ could help, then asked if Sthal could be spared.  “Lieutenant Worf has asked to meet with you.  I think he wants to thank you for saving his life.”

            Sthal shook her head.  “He gives me too much credit, but I will go with you.  Or perhaps,” she modified as he looked around, “another could escort me while you inspect this facility.”

            The first officer agreed he would appreciate a tour and tapped his comm badge.  D’Sora could take Sthal to Worf.  After the Malèd beamed up, Riker turned to La Forge and said, “Unless you’d rather have the lieutenant here for the inspection?  I’ll admit she’s prettier than I am, but her jokes aren’t as funny.”

            La Forge stopped, a goofy smile on his face.  It faded when he heard his friend’s laugh.  He cleared his throat and asked Riker what he meant.

            “I’ve seen the way you look at each other!  You both have your professional faces on, but you can’t fool this old campaigner; you haven’t been like this since Christi.  I just don’t want to hear about you two being caught in a turbolift in a compromising position!  So how long has it been going on, or should I mind my own business?”

            Denial was hopeless.  La Forge replied, “Two days.  Two glorious days, almost three.  She’s…I mean, it’s…it’s just…”  His words trailed off into thoughts of compromising positions.

            “I get the idea,” Riker said to his friend.  For a moment his thoughts turned to a similar time in his own life, the first heady days of his affair with the woman who was now the ship’s counselor.  If La Forge felt even half what Riker had, he was a lucky man.  It was the only good thing to come from Data’s absence.  “Now, why don’t you show me around, Mr. La Forge?”

 

            Worf already had visitors, namely his son and Troi.  Alexander was tense, Troi calm as usual as she smiled hello.  Worf asked D’Sora to stay, then looked at the Malèd.

            “Sthal of the Malèdri, I am Worf, son of Mogh, a warrior of the Klingon Empire and an officer of Starfleet.  Beside me is my son, Alexander.”  At Worf's gentle prodding, the child looked up.  “Because he made an error in judgment,” and Alexander stiffened, “one which he will not repeat, our lives nearly ended in the seas of your planet.

            “But thanks to you, we were spared.  I am in your debt, for both our lives.  At this time I have no way to discharge that debt, but I look forward to doing so.”  He bowed his head.

            “Warrior,” Sthal replied, “my people do not exchange debts of honor for the saving of a life.  It is for us an affirmation that we are all part of the One Life, and of more worth to us than any debt.  Yet we do not wish to deny the customs of others.  You are the first Klingon I have met,” she added with an enigmatic smile, “and set a high standard for your people.

            “Any debt will be abated if you and the young warrior join with Threrr, my mate, and me for threshgralishgan.”  Sthal explained it as a ritualized hunt to gather dirnal from wild tresh.  It was part of a ceremony that preceded both weddings and reproductive matings; in the latter case, those who would be the Malèdri equivalent of godparents to the hatchlings also took part.

            Sthal said she and Threrr were nearly ready for such a mating.  “We ask you and your son to be guardians-elect of our next clutch and perform threshgralishgan with us.”

            Worf considered the Malèd.  It seemed such a simple thing in comparison with her having saved his life.  As if reading his mind, she said, “Lest you think I offer some sop to your honor, even our tamed tresh can be evil-tempered.  Wild tresh are dangerous.  They move quickly, to attack as well as escape.  Lack of care can lead to injuries more severe than those you now bear.”

            The Klingon smiled, a fearsome sight.  “Your invitation honors us.  We accept.”

            Then he tapped Alexander’s arm and the boy took a deep breath.  Taking one hand from behind his back, he gave the dirnal teardrop to Sthal and haltingly told how he came to have the gem.  “Counselor Troi said these are valuable,” he ended, “and that I should give it back.”

            The Malèd admired the perfection she held, glanced from the gem to the fidgeting child, and thanked Alexander, saying his honorable act reflected well on his father.

            “You found the offering of a wild tresh, though, not one of our partners.  We have no claim on such gems, which belong to those gifted enough to recognize them.”  Sthal put the dirnal in Alexander’s hand, bowed, said he would be an asset on the ritual hunt, and expressed her intent to return to the habitat.  The rest left Worf to dream of tresh hunts and victory feasts.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

10

 

 

            Dae’s house, high on a corner lot in the Mt. Washington area, had a spectacular view.  The slopes from the walkway and terrace surrounding the house to the retaining walls along the sidewalk were planted with colorful native perennials, plumed grasses and silver-foliaged plants that softened the strong lines of the white-stuccoed house with its Spanish tile roof.

            Data’s first walk in public was a complete success.

            Dae introduced him to her neighbors as Dana Oliver, Indianapolis computer wizard and actor-wannabe, whom she had met while rescuing him from a mugging.  Her next-door neighbor, a middle-aged widow named Tatiana, told Data that Dae’s tendency to act first and ask questions later was inherited from Minnie.

            The android explained, when asked, that Dae had offered him a room when she found he lacked other resources.  As to why no one had seen him during his first week in the neighborhood, he claimed to have picked up a cold on the flight in.

            A couple of people noticed his makeup, and Data repeated the tale he and Dae had concocted, that a childhood illness left him with partial baldness and blotchy skin.  It embarrassed those who asked, but it convinced them.  Their kindness puzzled Data until he realized that, with his cover story and Dae’s obvious trust, they had no reason _not_ to accept him.

 

            April passed in a dizzy blur for Dae.  The series she worked on was on hiatus for three months to accommodate movie and theater work by several cast members.  It was a longer break than usual, but the studio had given the cast an extra month off, as long as publicity for all outside projects prominently mentioned the series.

            In the meantime, she worked on a spin-off series and three TV-movies.  She saw her roommate about three hours a day except Sundays, which she had off.  They split the time between playing tourist and cooking.

            Data took over his own makeup at once, but it took several days for Dae to build him a wig.  Using synthetic hair, she chose several shades of browns and auburns for a natural base shade, highlights and depth.

            After blending the various hair colors for a natural effect, she fitted Data with a cap of fine mesh, then put it on a wig form clamped to her worktable.  Using a specialized needle like a nearly-straightened fishhook with a wooden handle, she started tying hairs onto the cap a few at a time.  When trimmed and combed, the results were almost as impressive as a replicated wig.

            Dae was serious about teaching the android to cook.  She assumed his research project involved learning how people lived during the latter twentieth century, and food was an integral part of life.  It was just Data’s tough luck, she laughed, that he met up with an amateur chef.

            The experiment with pancakes was only marginally successful.  Measuring and mixing went fine, but flipping…to be fair, Data did clean up the stove well.  And the ceiling.  What ended up on plates was not quite worth the effort.  It was only after Dae unearthed a book that explained cooking in terms of chemistry and physics that he understood some of his mistakes.

            His lessons went better after that.  Dae was an excellent cook, though Data could not appreciate all the nuances, and a patient teacher, and the android was soon turning out perfect pancakes by the dozen.  He progressed apace to omelets and soufflés, knew precisely when to take the scrambled eggs off the heat, and made eggs over easy without a single broken yolk.  As far as seasoning was concerned, he deferred to her—his inability to taste could be disastrous—but he worked his way through all her cookbooks.

            He took up gardening, too, Keiko’s work in botany being his main inspiration.  He chose to concentrate on vegetables as an adjunct to his kitchen experience, and because the results would save Dae money.  Adapting his twenty-fourth-century knowledge to twentieth-century seedlings, in a fairly small plot, yielded everything from bell peppers to zucchini.

            When she could pry him out of the kitchen and garden, they were in her car, or on a bus or the monorail.  Data found that, with its examples of pollution, aid organizations, overcrowding, conspicuous consumption, volunteerism, crime, unemployment, honest work, and personal sacrifice, 1994 Los Angeles was a microcosm of the worst and best in human progress.

            In the category of honest work, Dae was a sterling example, but she liked to play as well as work and promised Data as many sightseeing tours as she could manage on her paychecks.

            This caveat prompted him to look for a job.

 

            Data got his first lecture on practical finance a few days after Easter.  Dae came home from work at half past nine to find the animals fed and dinner—well, leftovers—in progress.  Data sat with her while she ate, then she said she needed the desk for a while to pay the bills.  When he asked to how many men named William she owed money, she decided it was time for a lesson.

            She explained the process from bank deposit to the bottom line after the bills were paid.

            Her instruction impressed him, not just with her ability to cope but also with the necessity of having his own source of income.  The things he required to make his stay as productive as possible required more funds than he could bring himself to ask from her.

            So while Dae worked, Data looked for an appropriate way to market his skills with the lowest risk of discovery.

            He chose to try finding consulting jobs on which he could work from home.  As an independent contractor, he might be able to avoid the stickier aspects of employment, like prior employers and job experience.  If absolutely necessary, Dae suggested he say his client base was confidential and that was one of the reasons he asked the rates he did.

            When in doubt, she said, bluff, and bluff big.  He found her attitude reminiscent of Riker’s during a poker game.

            Dana Oliver became a computer consultant in hardware and software testing for his fictitious self-owned company, Computer Consultations, Inc.  He placed his company name and qualifications on the S-net bulletin board and made several preliminary contacts, then made calls on the business line Dae ordered.

            His first job came the third week of April, a software company whose own debuggers had thrown up their hands in despair over their newest desktop publishing package.  The senior manager found Data’s ad and decided he had nothing to lose.

            The program arrived the next day, nestled in a complex set of paperwork threatening dire legal action if it was either damaged or stolen, warnings whose necessity made Data sigh.  He loaded it, found the problems in five minutes and had them fixed in three.  Dae advised him not to contact the company for a few days, since most people couldn’t work that fast.  So he waited two days before reporting on the glitches, and a week before sending the first revisions.

            Dae suggested he arrange payment before sending the rest and helped him set up an account for his business at her bank.

            Once the software company tested his initial revisions, the first half of his fee was wired to the bank the next day.  Payment of the balance arrived the day they got his final revisions.

            Data, as the saying went, was in business.  He bought a high-end file server and a new printer on one of his Sunday outings with Dae—if his first fee was a sign of things to come, he could well afford the equipment.

            Earning a living was, in Data’s estimation, far more interesting than poker.

 

* * *

 

            In the captain’s mess later that evening, Riker subjected La Forge to cautious but pointed teasing that lasted until D’Sora, invited to eat with the senior officers because of her position as acting security chief, paused at the open door.

            “Lieutenant D’Sora, come in, no need to be shy,” Picard said as he poured tea.  “Please, help yourself.”  He recommended the trout amandine and took his seat at the head of the table.

            The captain’s mess served two purposes.  One, of course, was to eat.  Attendance was not mandatory, and the captain himself might be absent.  But most of the staff usually attended.

            Second, it gave the captain a chance to interact with his officers in a more casual setting, get to know them better, since the better acquainted he and his staff were, the better they functioned together, to the benefit of the ship.  Third, he heard the latest gossip—to which Picard would never _admit_ listening, but he felt it was a valuable tool in gauging the mood of the crew.

            Picard listened with half an ear to Riker’s needling while discussing Fabrini philosophy with Troi and the doctor.  D’Sora’s entry made La Forge glance up, and his gaze lingered.  The captain noticed the lieutenant’s answering blush, saw Riker smirk, and realized his chief engineer had a new interest.  He smiled to himself.

            Crusher invited D’Sora to sit by her.  She wanted to get to know the younger woman better and was curious to see how she would handle herself.  La Forge had dropped a glass of synthale at the captain’s feet during his first dinner after his promotion to chief engineer, shortly before her own transfer to Starfleet Medical.  It had been a memorable meal.

            She began by complimenting D’Sora’s musical skills, and when she demurred, Troi said others had mentioned D’Sora’s musical talent, too.

            “Yes, Lieutenant,” put in Riker with mischief in his voice, “we’ve heard a number of complimentary things about your…abilities.”

            Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth and she shot a nervous glance at La Forge, who shrugged in surrender.  She finished her bite of trout, removed a bone from between her teeth, and dabbed her napkin at the corners of her mouth.

            And then, with a liquid gleam in her eyes, she said, or rather, purred, “Thank you, Commander.  I’ve heard several very complimentary things about your…abilities…as well.”  The double entendre was unmistakable.

            The first officer sat stunned, and D’Sora thought she’d overstepped the limits.  Until he laughed.  “Well said, Jenna,” the captain told her with a brief smile.  He rather admired her nerve and raised an eyebrow at his overwhelmed first officer.  “Touché, Number One?”

            Wiping his eyes with his napkin, the still-laughing Riker agreed it was definitely touché.

            Troi smiled at her old friend’s discomfort and asked D’Sora about the trout.  La Forge’s worry about Data was always at the forefront of his emotions, but the empath sensed their mutual fondness when in D’Sora’s presence, and so steered the conversation away from personal matters.

            La Forge tried to stifle his relief.

            Crusher decided it was another meal for the record books.

 

* * *

 

            In mid-May, Q showed up.

            The entity appeared in a soundless blaze behind Data as he worked at the computer.  “Well, well, well,” said Q.  “If it isn’t my professor of the humanities.  What are you doing?  Playing games?”

            “No,” the android corrected, “I am attempting to earn a living.”  He saved his work, then turned in his chair to face Q.  The alien half-sat against Dae’s worktable, arms folded across his chest while a curious expression vied with his usual sneer.

            “I can’t say it’s done much for your looks,” Q told him, looking the android up and down.  “At least your coloring made you more interesting than the rest of them.  And the uniform, silly as it is,” he looked at his own uniform with its captain’s insignia, then gestured at Data, “is more flattering than that garb.  Whatever do you call it?”

            Dae had increased Data’s wardrobe, adding shirts, slacks and shoes that were a bit more formal than jeans and sneakers.  Today he was in full makeup and wore a long-sleeved, pale-blue oxford shirt, a pair of cream-colored slacks, and brown loafers with beige socks.  The android glanced down and replied, “I call it clothing.  If you have come for a synopsis of my research, I have little to report.”

            “Hmm.  You’re slowing down, Data.  You’ve been here almost two months, I’d expected you to have a full analysis by now.”  Q sighed in grand disappointment.  “Oh, well.  Nobody’s perfect.  Except me, of course.”  Data remained silent.  “Are you enjoying yourself, at least?”

            “While I cannot enjoy anything, I nonetheless find it very interesting here.”  He watched Q go to the shelves, pick a book, and leaf through it.  “How are my friends, and Spot?”

            Q closed the book and took another.  He looked bored.  “Your beast is fine.  They finally conned some poor fool named Barclay into caring for it.  The vicious creature sent all her other caretakers to suffer the inept ministrations of Dr. Crusher.”  The name came out in a growl.  “Everyone else is fine.  You’ll be pleased to know they’ve managed to carry on without you.

            “In fact,” he went on, picking a third book with no more interest than the first two inspired, “they’ve forgotten all about you.”

            Data knew better than to take the comment at face value.  “How long have I been gone?”

            The alien raised one eyebrow, clucked his tongue against his teeth and shook a finger at Data.  “Naughty, naughty, Professor!  That would be telling.  Suffice it to say that they aren’t spending much time being heartbroken over you.  There are so many more intriguing things in the universe, after all, than looking for one lone android.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

            “If you mean there are more productive activities than searching fruitlessly for me, I do agree.  But I question your claim that they have forgotten me.  That they have stopped inquiries into my disappearance does not necessarily mean I am not in their thoughts, as they are in mine.”

            “Have you become a long-distance telepath, Data?”  Q spoke with delighted sarcasm and went to stand in the doorway.  “How can you know what’s in their minds?  I tell you now that they’re more concerned with their mission than with the lack of your company.  In your case, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, it’s out of sight, out of mind.”

            Before the android could respond, he heard Dae’s key rattle in the back door lock.  “Data, I’m home!  Where are you?”

            “In the office, Dae.”  He looked at Q and said in an undertone, “Do you intend to show yourself to her?”

            Q cast a speculative glance toward the living room.  “You haven’t mentioned me?”

            Data’s voice was very low.  “There seemed no reason to do so.  Would you require it?”

            Dae walked right through Q, then stopped and spun back.  “Brrr,” she said, rubbing her arms.  “Cold spot.  I wonder if we’ve suddenly collected a ghost?”  Q stuck out his tongue and made a face at her.  She turned away.  “How’d it go today?”

            “Very well,” he replied, his eyes darting back and forth between Dae and Q.  The alien behaved quite childishly, flapping his arms and making weird noises to prove Dae was unaware of him.  The entity ended his show by thrusting his hand through her skull and waving at Data.

            “I could remove her puny brain so easily,” he told the android.  “But it wouldn’t be worth the trouble, though it might improve the quality of her prattle.  Tell her about me if you wish,” Q said as he took his hand from Dae’s head, leaving her brain in its place.  “Though I don’t suppose she has any more intellectual capacity to understand the magnificence of the Q Continuum than the rest of you.”  He was gone in a flash.

            Dae snapped her fingers in front of Data’s face.  He started.  “Still with me?  You seem distracted.”

            “I am sorry,” he said.  “How was your day?”

            She grinned.  “My last day, you mean?”

            Dae had his immediate attention.  “You have not lost your position?  I will—”

            “No, no, I still have a job, but I’ve got some vacation time saved up, too.  I’m taking the next few weeks off, until the series starts again, so we can do a little more traveling if you’d like, and I can take you to the library more often.”  He stood and she grabbed his hand.  “Sit with me while I eat, we can make plans.  Oh, and I’m having a party Saturday.  You can meet my other friends.  How are you at tending bar?”

            Q stuck his head out of the monitor and watched them leave.  “This should be quite entertaining.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: the monorail comment...in 1963, Alweg, the company that built Disneyland's monorail system, offered to design and build a monorail for Los Angeles. They even said they'd maintain it. Free to the city, with the expectation of making back their investment through rider fares.
> 
> The Los Angeles City Council turned Alweg down. So instead, we got lots of cars, lots of traffic, a public transit system that's been sued at least once for discriminating against certain classes of transit users, and a subway system in Earthquake Country.
> 
> ***sigh***


	11. Chapter 11

11

 

 

            They had plenty to do before Saturday.  Dae had been giving the housework a lick and a promise, and Data helped her stay uncluttered, but it was nowhere near enough for a party.

            While Dae ate dinner, Data made notes.  The rugs had to be taken out, the floors mopped, the rugs vacuumed.  The window screens needed rinsing, and if the screens were down, the windows should be washed, inside as well as out, which meant taking down drapes and cleaning them, too.  Dae said she was getting tired just thinking about it.

            “Then why not have the party next weekend?”

            “Nope,” she replied.  “My friends have been asking on and off for weeks when it’d be.  I figured it’d be simpler just to do it.”  The android, though diffident, said it seemed rather presumptuous of her friends.  Dae only chuckled and told him the hiatus party was a long tradition, and her home the unanimous choice for location.

            “We all chips in on drinks,” she told Data, “do potluck for munchies and salads, throw something on the barbecue, and everyone goes home stuffed to the gills and happy as clams.”

            “The only times I have heard of clams being stuffed to the gills,” Data said, “it is because they were in imminent danger of being consumed.”  He looked very confused.  “I do not think the prospect would make the clams happy, were they sentient and sensible of the ramifications.”

            She smiled an indulgent smile and patted his hand.  “Never mind, sugar.”  She put her dishes in the dishwasher and headed to the living room.  “Mind if I stretch out while we plan?”

            “Not at all, Dae,” he said, and stood to follow her.  And then he stopped. “‘Sugar’?”

 

            By Friday night, the house shone, everything from the bathroom tile to the grills on the built-in barbecue, and Dae’s contribution to the next day’s feast, baked beans à la Philomena, soaked in a crock in the kitchen.

            She surveyed the living room with a grin.  Data had offered to do the cleaning, but she refused: it was her party and she was going to pull her own weight getting ready for it.  Even so, he did much of the work, and she was thanking him for it again when she caught an odd look on his face.  “Something wrong?”

            “I am concerned about participating in the festivities.”  His tone dashed her mood.  “My interactions with most people here have been brief, and I do not know if I will be convincing as a ‘human’ in a large group for an extended period.  Perhaps I should absent myself from—”

            “You try it,” she broke in, “and I’ll hog-tie you and drag you back.  I want you and my other friends to get to know each other.  Why are you worried?”

            He told her thought his lack of humor and mode of expression would be too odd for her friends to accept.

            “Don’t worry about the way you talk, it’s interesting.  We don’t all talk alike, you know.  And I’ve met lots of people with no sense of humor, but if it’ll make you feel better, just laugh along with the rest of the group.  Laugh for me, Data”

            He did.  She winced.  He cut off the atonal sound. “Maybe we’d better settle for a smile.”  He substituted a tooth-baring grin and staring eyes.  “I said a smile, not a grimace.”

            Data stopped at once and sighed.  “I cannot appear tomorrow.  I cannot smile correctly, or laugh correctly, probably because I do not understand the emotions behind the behaviors.”

            Dae racked her brain for an answer.  There had to be _something_ she could do.  “Data, have you ever actually seen the way you smile?”  He shook his head.  “Come with me.”  She went to her room and sat on the bed, patting the place beside her.  The android joined her after a moment’s hesitation.  “Okay, smile and watch yourself in the mirror.”

            He did, the results only slightly less chilling than before.  Telling him to watch, she copied his grimace, then let her muscles fall into a natural smile.  “Can you see the difference?  How fake the first one was?”  Data tried again and still came up with a look destined to frighten small children.  “Still needs work.  I know, I’ll smile and you feel the way the facial muscles move.  Then you copy me.”

            It made a definite impact.  He touched his own smile, then Dae’s.  “Yes, I feel the difference.”  He understood then it was at least as much a question of muscular interplay as emotional motivation.  “Perhaps improving the former will compensate for a lack of the latter.”

            He dropped his hands, concentrated, and the corners of his mouth began to curve upward.  It was small, a little one-sided, but very much a human smile.  Dae’s eyes lit up.

            “That’s the ticket!” she said.  “Don’t worry about laughing, use that smile instead and you’ll be irresistible!”

            “I do not wish to be irresistible,” Data said, and his new smile faded.  “I only wish to be accepted.”  He spoke with such longing that she blinked back tears.

            “I’ll do anything I can to help you,” promised Dae.  “But you have to remember, while we all hope for acceptance, this life stuff is pretty risky business.  The only way to avoid it is to become a hermit, but you miss an awful lot that way.  Promise you won’t turn hermit on me?”

            His own brief smile returned, a bare twitch of his lips.  “I promise,” he agreed.  “I will allow you to retire now.”  He reached the door and looked back at Dae.  “Thank you for helping me smile.”

            She winked.  “My pleasure, sugar.”

 

* * *

 

            D’Sora and La Forge slept in each other’s arms, the embarrassment of dinner forgotten.  And he had a dream about his missing friend.  There was a weird feeling to it, an unusual vividness, and the images, unlike his VISOR, mimicked his experience of normal sight.

            It was quiet, only soft clicks and murmurs breaking the silence.  La Forge got a sense of cool stuffiness tainted with smoke, and the lighting was artificial, harsh and glaring.  Data sat next to a dark-haired woman at one end of a long green table that held several unknown objects.  Opposite the two sat a humanoid, possibly human, male, middle-aged, unremarkable.

            Suddenly Data was gone, replaced by a human male who looked a little like him.  The woman left after kissing the human Data on the cheek.

            A blonde woman stood beside the table and passed a large object to the middle-aged man.  Two cards flew from it to land in front of the younger man, a four and a five.  A huge pile of chips joined the cards.  The older man, cold fury in his gaze, made a signal.

            Two more men appeared.  They grabbed “Data” as the dark-haired woman ran up and pounded at them.  One pushed her away and she burst into flames, mouthing screams La Forge was relieved not to hear.  Soon nothing was left of her but a tendril of oily smoke.

            “Data” struggled, and the middle-aged man came from his end of the table, laughing.  He twisted off the younger man’s head and it turned gold in his hands.  The body, Data’s body, fell and crushed the table.  The man tucked Data’s head under his arm and turned away.

            The head, now facing La Forge upside-down, said “Geordi?  Is that you?” and vanished.

            “Data!  Where are you?” La Forge cried.  He sat up, entangled in the covers, and knew that he was blind.

            “Lights!  Geordi, what is it?”

            “Jenna!  Is Data here?”  He fumbled around for his discarded VISOR.

            She guided his hand to the nightstand until he found the appliance.  “No, just us.  Are you okay?”  His breath labored.  She got two mugs of sweet iced coffee from the replicator and sat on the bed beside him.

            “It must have been a hell of a dream,” she said.  He described it, sipping his drink as he calmed down.

            D’Sora began rubbing his shoulders.  “I think you’re more worried about Data than you let on.  I’ll see if I can come up with a new approach.  Tomorrow.”  She reached around him to pick up her mug.  He stopped her with a kiss.

 

            The desalinization project moved more quickly than expected.  All readings were in line with the Malèdri specs, so they beamed down the tresh.  The bivalves settled on the bay floor for a meal.  The Malèdri reported them to be pleased and were glad to follow them to the planet.  The varied plant life bore fruits of excellent flavor and nutrition, and the plankton that nourished the tresh enriched the Malèdri diet.  The settlers lived in portable shelters on the beach, swam in the bay, and it was during one such swim that Fren saw something no one could explain.

            The plesiapods stayed at the mouth of the bay.  Fren, and later others, saw three of them surface, tap some of the others with their dual tentacles, and take their places.  Those so “relieved” breached in huge splashes before swimming back towards the depths.

            There were two more oddities.  First, the tresh images were sometimes very intense, almost euphoric, then leveled off to their usual sense of satisfied well-being.

            The second, less well defined, was just as strange.  Brethal was a generous planet—to the Malèdri.  To the Starfleet crew, though, “stingy” and “mean-spirited” were better adjectives.  Fruit the Malèdri found tasty, the crew did not, but Malèdri taste receptors functioned the same way as did most humanoids’, allowing for cultural differences.

            As an experiment, Sthal brought a fruit to Worf, who sat on the beach on Crusher’s orders to get sun and fresh air.  And Worf, who had praised Riker’s scrambled owon eggs, spat it out and drained a glass of prune juice to clear his palate.

            There were other things, too, just as inexplicable.  The Malèdri explored the forest behind their camp and praised the beauty they found.  When the crew tried to explore, they found the way blocked by sticky lianas and dense undergrowth.  One of the crew decided to try the old-fashioned approach and brought a machete.  The first time he tried to use it, a liana tangled around the blade.  The harder he tried to loose it, the more lianas he dislodged.  He was soon borne to the ground, and his shouts brought help not a moment too soon:  when his friends arrived, he was covered by greenery that pressed with ominous force on his face and chest.  So there was no more exploring alone, and none but the Malèdri were really interested, anyway.

            Troi began to feel there might be sentient life somewhere on the planet, a feeling she found impossible either to justify or ignore.

            One afternoon, three days after moving the tresh to the bay, Troi came to the bridge.

            “Lieutenant D’Sora,” she smiled, “there’s something down there, a sentience like nothing I’ve ever felt, but it’s so fleeting I’m never sure I’ve sensed it.  I need your help.”  They talked about when and where her impressions were strongest.  D’Sora entered the data, paralleled it with the sensor scans, graphed it almost as an afterthought, and found a correlation.

            Thinking she had made an error, she asked Troi to check the information.  There were no mistakes in the transcriptions, so she checked the sensor logs again, reran the calculations, and found the same anomalous answer as before.

            “Commander Riker,” Troi said, “come here and look at this.”  She pointed to the display as Riker came up from the command chair and asked D’Sora to explain it.

            What she had found was a strange field in the bay, bioelectric, possibly biomagnetic, and cyclic.  The empath’s feeling of sentience on Brethal peaked when she was on the planet during a spike in this field, troughed when she was aboard ship midway between spikes.

            “But what’s causing the field,” asked Riker, “and what’s it got to do with the intelligence you sense, Deanna?”  They discussed ideas while D’Sora studied the screen.

            She remembered something La Forge had told her, that every now and then on Brethal, he had feelings of incredible strength and peace, even joy.  “It’s weird,” he had said, “considering the general discomfort around here, but it’s like all of a sudden I don’t have a care in the world.  I feel like I could take on a pack of rabid Cardassians single-handed.”

            Now that she thought of it, the Malèdri, and the crew most involved with the project, had all reported similar positive feelings.  She tried to recall exact incidents and found, if she interpolated times for incomplete descriptions, those feelings hit with the field spike.

            “D’Sora to La Forge.”  He was at the aquaforming dome.  “Is Sthal there, or Fren?”  Fren was.  “Can you recall, Fren, any specific times the tresh reported feeling better than usual?”  The Malèd reeled off a series of time indices.  “And what about the times the plesiapods swapped positions?”  The intervals were too alike to be chance.  Last, she focused on local sensor scans.

            Into the computer the new information went, and her fingers flew over the panel.  “This can’t be right.  Geordi, I’m transmitting my results to the station, check me on this, please.”

            “What do you have, Lieutenant?” Riker demanded, bending over the panel with Troi.

            The channel to Brethal was still open, and Fren echoed the question as La Forge ran the data for himself.  “The plesiapods, sir,” D’Sora said.  “The bioelectric field is at its lowest point when they exchange positions, and peaks midway between their ‘shift changes.’  The field peak seems to affect every living thing within range.  The plesiapods must be generating it.”

            La Forge completed his analysis.  “I agree, Commander, it’s the only thing that makes sense in light of these results.”

            “Mr. Macombrey,” ordered Riker, “start intensive scans of the bay and nearby ocean.  I want to confirm this connection.  And see if you can find other plesiapod groups, and if they also generate bioelectric fields.  Lieutenant D’Sora,” he said with a grin, “that was good work.  Let’s hope it holds up.  Now if we only knew _why_ it happens.”

            Troi suggested bringing Crusher and Aquatic Sciences into the loop.  “Perhaps the plesiapods are like Earth’s electric eels, or Antosian dryworms, generating the field for protection or communication.  If they commune with one another, it might explain the sentience I feel.”

            The first officer agreed it was an intriguing theory.  At his use of a word they so closely associated with Data, the mood of accomplishment soured into sorrow.

 

* * *

 

            Dae rose at four a.m. to put her beans in the oven, went back to bed until eight, then got up for keeps.  Data was slaving away over a hot keyboard, so she left him to it.  She fed the animals, swept the back yard, and hosed a winter’s worth of dust from her lawn chairs.

            Breakfast was a solitary and slapdash affair.  Dae knew there would be plenty of food later, but she didn’t want her stomach growling in the meantime.  After scrounging half a cantaloupe and a messy omelet, she took two cups of tea to the office.  “How’s it going, Data?” she asked as she set his cup within reach.

            “Quite well, thank you.  I have just determined that this company’s programmers have made several errors that justifiably merit the adjective ‘sloppy’.  However, they will be simple to rectify.”  He rectified.

His consulting business was gaining a little fame, as his first success had led to bulletin-board praise for his “company”.  Data had been hired by five other companies since, and had several more inquiries.  One that held a lot of promise, a cutting-edge hardware and software company called ClairTech in Silicon Valley, wanted to hire him full-time as a technical consultant.

            Once he finished the program revisions, he worked on his own project.  So far, Data had culled one hundred three diskettes’ worth of information from his research.  He was designing a complex analytical program, one he hoped would result in a precise quanitification of humankind’s ethical state.  It had one rather large flaw—it would take the computer capacity of six high-powered file servers to run, an expensive proposition in his present circumstances.

            When his father had said people needed money in the past, did he know just how much?

            Data’s work kept Dae company while she designed aliens, and she had nine promising designs by the time she had to get ready.  The cats would be confined to the office for the duration, so she brought in their food and water, then made another trip with their sandboxes.

            “You’d better change, too,” she said.  “And I’d suggest wearing a darker shirt.  Your natural glow might show through a pale one in the sun.”  She mussed his hair and added, “And don’t forget how to smile!”  He demonstrated that he still remembered.

            The android listened to nothing in particular as he assumed his human persona.  Picking out clothes was still a novelty, and so used was he to a uniform that he had to consciously avoid wearing the same things twice in a row.  Data chose a dark red shirt and his black jeans for the festivities, corralled the cats in the office and waited in the living room for Dae.

            The doorbell rang before she appeared.  She asked him to get it, so he did, apprehension at war with curiosity.  There stood a full-figured blonde woman a little younger than Dae, juggling a large baking pan, some smaller containers and a grocery bag.  Data opened the screen door and caught three containers in succession.  “Whew!  Thanks!” the stranger said.  “I’d have hated to have to scrape that stuff off the mat.”  She studied him, frank and unhurried.  He had her precede him to the kitchen and introduced himself as Dana Oliver.

            “I figured,” she said over her shoulder.  “I’m Kat.  Katrina Dannemann.  I work with Dae at the studio.  Pleased to meet you, finally.”  She put the pan and bag on a counter and shook his hand.  “Help me with this, will you please?”  Together they arranged her supplies.  She opened the largest container and stuck it under his nose.  “What do you think?”

            Faced with no other choice, he inhaled.  “Ah.  Potato.  Russet, to be precise, and baked.  Onion lightly sautéed with garlic, tomato, red and green bell peppers,” he inhaled again, “minced cilantro, chile powder blended from medium-hot chiles, salt, black pepper, milk, sharp cheddar cheese…yes, an intriguing mixture.  It should be quite palatable.  What do you think, Dae?”

            Kat whirled, her eyes wide, and saw Dae standing at the kitchen door wearing a sleeveless green shirt, faded jeans, a pair of well-worn boots, and a happy grin.  “Sounds great to me.  If you left out the Worcestershire sauce this time, Kat, that was one seasoning too many last year.”  Kat nodded, still looking a little stunned, while Dae spooned up little tastes of the stuff for herself and Data.  “I guess I didn’t warn you, Data has a very sharp sense of smell.”

            “True, Dae, but you have the more refined palate,” he replied.  He rolled the potato concoction around on his tongue and decided most humans would find it tasty, wished he could, and so told Kat it was quite good.  Dae agreed, then asked whether Kat planned to stuff that pan full of potato skins or had she just dragged them over for artistic effect?

            Kat finally got her voice back and said, “Of course I’m going to stuff them, smarty, but where’s the cookie sheets?”  Data watched so he kept pace with them as they spooned the filling onto the wedges of potato skin.  The smell mixed with the aroma of Dae’s baking beans and made the kitchen seem, in the android’s opinion, somehow friendlier.  He watched with interest as Kat added the finishing touches of Parmesan cheese and chopped pimiento.

            Kat asked for a glass of iced tea, so Dae poured two, then a third when Data answered her raised eyebrows with a nod.  They sat down in the living room to wait, and it was only a few minutes before the bell rang again.  It was Madoc Apstead, alias “Doc,” the series makeup designer and supervisor, and his wife Cluny.  He held a bottle of wine, Cluny a large bag.  Dae greeted them with hugs and kisses.  Data discerned the scents of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, which would fill Cluny’s homemade biscuit shortcakes.

            Drinks and munchies appeared, more people arrived, and the party took off.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

12

 

 

            A plesiapod raised a single tentacle.  The tip moved among the rocks as if it wished to avoid discovery, curling, extending, tasting what the newcomers wrought.  It was neither good nor bad, just different.  The plesiapod quivered.  Unless the whole world was turned to this—

            _Quiet, little one.  I would not suffer them to hurt you.  Continue._

            Reassured, the plesiapod extended its tentacle further onto the bay floor.  It approached a group of feeding tresh and touched the foot of one.

            That tresh snapped shut but the others continued eating.  The tentacle pulled back, then petted the tresh’s foot again, trailed over the shell, and touched the soft tissue at the edges.  The mollusk opened.  The tentacle wound inside and stroked along the body.

            The tresh laughed.  It offered a small pink pillow of dirnal, which the tentacle investigated, but rather than take it, it nestled it back into the shell, then took its leave with a friendly flick.  Other tresh responded in similar fashion.

            The tentacle pulled back.  None but the tresh had seen it.  The slow watch continued.

            A few hours later, several tresh moved from their chosen spots to face the plesiapods at the edge of the bay floor.  The Malèdri sensed only a bewildering anticipation.

 

            Everyone agreed that Brethal was a nice place to visit.  It had bright sunshine, two glorious moons, and interesting flora and fauna, if you didn’t annoy the flora with a machete.  It also displayed some interesting weather, like a clear violet sky clouding over, dropping a drenching rain or marble-sized hail, and clearing to rainbows and puddles, all in ten minutes.

            The flora included species reminiscent of Earth with some fascinating differences.  The land fauna exhibited equal diversity.  But the sea life, save for the plankton and the plesiapods, was elusive.  The water scattered the scanning beam despite Macombrey’s best efforts.  Nowhere but the aquaforming site could he get clear readings.

            Yet the long-range scans made on the way to Brethal gave no clue that any unusual conditions existed.  Samples of water from different spots in the ocean were beamed to the aquatics lab, analyzed, and showed up as nothing more than plain, ordinary, slightly salty H2O.

            La Forge’s sensor enhancements made things a bit easier but raised more questions than they answered.  And of the reason those enhancements were designed, there was not a sign.

 

            Worf, in the meantime, was tired of sickbay.  And rehab.  The food from the sickbay replicators tasted wrong, not like _his_ replicator’s meals.  The lights were too bright, except if he wanted to read, when they were too dim.  When he wanted to sit, he had to lie down.  When he wanted to lie down, he had to sit, or stand, or stretch.

            The Klingon warrior was, in short, bored stiff and thoroughly depressed.  The only joy he got was in annoying the doctors and maintaining he would see Troi eat gagh.  Lots of it.

            This particular day, Worf was in a vile humor.  Although healing well, his injuries still caused bouts of unbearable pain.  It sapped his determination, made him irritable, and he cooperated with his physical therapist only grudgingly.

            Crusher called Troi to sickbay and briefed her.  Not that the empath needed much briefing.  Worf’s acerbic comments to the therapist carried into the doctor’s office, and his mood washed over Troi’s psyche like a stormy sea.  “Part of me is glad about this,” said Crusher, “because it means he’s working on his recovery.  But he’s not helping himself with this attitude.”

            “I’ll see what I can do, Beverly,” Troi sighed, “even if I have to sit beside him all afternoon while he describes his victory feast.”  A curse in guttural Klingon punctuated her words and she shuddered.  “Maybe that’s the tack I should use.  That he’ll end up losing his bet if he doesn’t concentrate on his healing instead of his frustration.”

            Another Klingon curse rang out as the harried rehab tech popped his head into the office.  “The lieutenant is done for the day, Dr. Crusher,” he said, trying hard not to show his joy at leaving his temperamental patient.  At the doctor’s understanding nod, he fled.

            “Lucky him,” the empath said.  She braced herself, put on her best smile and went in.

            “I have no need of your services, Counselor,” Worf snarled.  He lay on his back today.  It was less interesting than lying on his stomach.  Instead of studying the floor, or the weave of his bedclothes, he could study the overhead.  Which he had already done ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

            Troi ignored his comment and pulled over a chair.  “Beverly seems to think you do.  I trust her judgment.”

            “Well, _I_ do not.”  He frowned.  “I should be doing something useful.  This is—”  Worf fell into another vile-sounding stream of Klingonese.

            Troi inspected him in critical silence.  He finally turned his head toward her and saw disbelief on her face.  “Worf.”  Her icy tone was one he had never heard.  “You’re feeling sorry for yourself!”  He started an outraged protest, and she raised a hand to stop him.  Her expression showed not just disbelief but—it was insupportable, he thought—amusement.  “Don’t bother to deny it.  You are lying here indulging, no, wallowing—wallowing!—in self-pity!”

            “Impossible.”  Worf replied through stiff lips, his face to the ceiling again.  “Klingon warriors do _not_ wallow in self-pity.”

            “Don’t lie to me,” she told him, “it isn’t worth it.”  She picked through the waves of emotion for clues.  “You’re worried.  You feel guilty.  And,” she went on in a quieter voice, “you’re afraid.”  Her touch was gentle as she turned his head until he faced her.  “Worf.  I’m not just the ship’s counselor, I’m the friend you asked to care for your son.

            “I’m not going to have to do that, because you’re going to be fine.”  Her assurance was complete.  “But you’re so angry.  Why, Worf?  At Alexander, for your relapse?  At yourself, for not healing faster?  For getting hurt in the first place?”  Troi could see she scored a point on each count.  “Anger is fine, but the energy you waste on it could be better used to help your recovery.”

            She paused, and when Worf spoke, he sounded more hopeless than ever.  “I cannot help it, Deanna.  My nature rebels at this weakness.  Yes, I am angry with Alexander, but how can I be?  I see him punishing himself, and my anger only makes me feel guilty.  He disobeyed the Malèd’s warning trying to earn my favor.  It makes me think I am less than a fit father.”

            Troi took a deep breath and chose her words with care.  One thing he would have to do, she said, was learn to express his feelings in a healthy way.  Alexander might be shocked, even hurt, by the depth of his father’s anger, but he needed to know his actions had consequences, and that his father, though he loved him, was as entitled as any other being to express _all_ his emotions.

            But Worf needed to release that anger, and his self-doubt, before talking to his son, or their intensity could drive a wedge between them.  She had him close his eyes and take slow, deep breaths.  He resisted at first, then gave in and felt his body unclench.  He had been unaware of his stiffness.  Perhaps she was right, and holding on to his rage kept him as tense in body as in mind.

            Her voice led him through darkness.  “Now, I want you to find a calm place within yourself, where you can think.”  The picture of lava caves filled his mind, the caves on No’Mat where he had known transports that filled his soul.  He felt the heat from the river of liquid fire beneath the caves, and his muscles loosened further.  She sensed his emotions mirror the physical change.  “Very good.”  Her approval fell on his ears like a wind-borne whisper as in his mind he knelt, hands clasped, a young Klingon seeking visions.

            “Look up, Worf,” commanded Troi’s voice within the wind, and he raised his eyes.  Across from him, beyond the flames, he saw a horrible creature, fanged and clawed, massive, sly, and dangerous.  It was part of the caves, part of the flames.

            It was part of him.

            “See your anger, Worf, the self-doubt and guilt,” her voice urged, surrounding him with its velvet.  He stood and faced the beast.  “It can harm you only if you let it.  Accept it, and its power over you diminishes.  Fight, and it controls you.”  The Klingon felt the truth of her words, but the lust for combat sang in his blood.  He threw his head back in a scream of challenge.

            Crusher grabbed a hypo and shot into the ward.  There sat Troi, one of Worf’s hands held in hers as he lay in bed, eyes closed and howling.  Troi’s eyes were shut, too, and a determined expression masked her beauty.  The hand Worf clutched turned white around the knuckles.

            “Be careful,” whispered the empath.  “Your enemy is strong.  You must accept it, lest you know defeat.”  Worf bellowed, not wanting to listen as he and the beast circled the fire.  He held his bat’leth, and began the stately dance that meant only death.  The weapon was part of him, razor sharpness and keen grace and prowess, and they would defeat the creature in glory….

            It sprang across the flames, its feral eyes agleam with deceit and hunger.  The bat’leth rose and turned the attack aside.  “Worf!” cried Troi, her voice forcing him to listen.  “This isn’t the way!”  And as she spoke, it leaped again, only now it cast a vision over him like a net.

            He saw himself in an alley of the First City.  Weak, crippled, a pitiful excuse for a Klingon, he begged for someone to end his dishonor.  He saw Alexander, a proud young warrior with his father’s strength, and he implored his son, and Alexander spat on him, turned on his heel and laughed at the feeble old Klingon who used to be Worf, son of Mogh.  None would help him, not even to give him a weapon so he could end his miserable life with a semblance of honor.

            At last he did die, afraid, alone, ignored, and his corpse gained more notice than his living body, enough to inspire some overly fastidious Klingon to aim a disruptor at the remains, the smoke of destruction fading away like the stench of death in a cold wind.  And Worf, son of Mogh, might as well have never been born for all the difference he had made to anyone.

            “NO!” roared Worf, surging up, and he broke Troi’s hand as, in his mind, he fought against the horror.  He went after the beast, which chuckled at him, made sport of him before it took him.

            “You’re letting it win, Worf,” wept the voice in the hot breeze.  “Its greatest weapon is its lies.  What it shows you are lies.  It knows that when you cease to fear it, it will dwindle and become as nothing.”  The Klingon held still for a moment, testing her claim, and saw the beast pause in its pursuit.  “Accept it, Worf.  Know it.  Release it, and become whole.”

            The words echoed in the caves, fed off the flames to become motes of brightness clustered in the shimmering air.  Worf dropped his blade and it disappeared.  He held out his arms and the motes led him forward.  The beast whimpered.  The Klingon said in wonder, “I know you now!  You are the part of me that shames me by existing.  The part that has no honor, no faith, no soul.”

            It howled in frustration and cowered away.  It looked less fearsome now, and smaller.  “You will not rule me,” said Worf, his voice resolute.  “I will learn to recognize you.”  Troi whispered encouragement, and Worf smiled.  The specks of light surrounded the creature, and it cried tears of blood that spattered into trickling sparks.  “You are mine now.”

            He reached out to the thing, seeing it as himself but unafraid of the revelation.  It took his hand, and as they touched it discorporated, joined the swirling motes that permeated Worf, and he felt his strength return.  Anger remained, sorrow, even fear, but they were cleaner, clearer, untainted by self-pity.  The vision faded, to be replaced by the drawn face of the empath who leaned over him.

            “Rest now, Worf,” Troi said.  There was pride in her tired voice, that he had won this most difficult battle.  “Rest, and grow strong, and I will eat gagh with you if it kills me.”  She chuckled as Worf, smiling, fell asleep.

            “Deanna, what did you do?” whispered Crusher as the empath loosed Worf’s hand and laid it across his chest.

            “I helped him see how destructive his emotions could be if he let them take precedence.”  She held her broken hand out to Crusher, who gave her a mild painkiller in a hypospray of metorapan.

            “Yes, but what did you do?  What did he see?”

            “I have no idea,” answered Troi, “and frankly, I don’t want to know.  Just feeling it hurt.  I sensed his emotional shifts and went along as best I could.  Can you take a break, Beverly?  I want to sit in Ten-Forward with a double hot fudge sundae and talk about absolutely nothing of consequence!”

            “Like how well Jenna lambasted Will at dinner?” Crusher suggested, her blue eyes looking more devilish than usual.  Troi laughed.

 

* * *

 

            The guests included almost everyone from the series and their respective spouses, friends, lovers, and significant others.  Most of the guests also brought folding chairs or card tables.  Since the day was beautiful, most of the party ended up in the back yard.  Malta was beside herself with joy.

            The appetizers, from Kat’s stuffed potato skins to veggie platters, were razed until not even a crumb was left.  When dinnertime came, Data wondered how anyone had room for a meal.  There was an abundant riot of food, more meat and poultry items on the grill than any android could have expected, and salads and vegetables and relishes and breads spread over the slate counters on either side of the grill and onto the patio table.

            The hostess kept an eye on her least nervous but most concerned guest.  She thought he should be on his own as much as possible, to let her friends get to know him at their own pace.  The android, with his blend of knowledge and naiveté, charmed and impressed in equal amounts.  He talked with everyone and listened with unfeigned interest to every speaker.  True, he made a few faux pas, but because everyone was having such a good time, they took his errors in stride.

            He never realized it, but his mistakes made him more human.  Too, he was Dae’s roommate, and that lent him a certain mystique of which he was unaware for several hours.

Data, in short, was a hit.

            The android discovered his friendship with Dae was the topic of much speculation.  Some assumed outright that they were more than roommates, and Data found these suppositions fascinating, since he and Dae did nothing to imply they were other than friends.  The couples present hugged and kissed often, while he and Dae did not.

            In fact, it occurred to Data that Dae’s behavior toward him was quite different, even than her actions toward her friends.  She hugged or kissed others, but not him.  She smiled at him, rested her hand on his shoulder now and then, but nothing more.

            Data began to wonder if she truly considered him a friend.  She might call him one, but the dichotomy in her actions belied that claim.  He found no such distinctions in his own friends’ behavior.  Of course, it was much less the custom in his time to express friendship in such a tactile way.  Perhaps that was why he noticed it more here.

            He was determined to ask Dae about it when a whispered conversation on the other end of the yard attracted his attention.  “Dana’s cute,” Lei Lin from the wardrobe department was saying.  “Do you think he and Dae are…you know, together?”

            Her companion, a production assistant named Thea, said, “Well, gee, they’re only living together, dope!  What do _you_ think, Tony?”

            Tony, short for Antonio, one of the grips, glanced at Data, then at Dae, and laughed, “I think Dana’s a very lucky man if they are, or a very stupid one if they’re not!”  Lei made a face, and Tony went on, “Now Lei, _querida_ , you know I love you, but Dae is special, too.  If Dana hasn’t made a move, I’d wonder why not.  Unless…how about the guy she dated last year?”

            Lei said, “The actor?  He’s still in New York in that play.  Maybe it has something to do with Kee.  Has she heard from either of them, Thea?”

            “Not the actor, I’m pretty sure.  I read somewhere that he and the ingénue are going hot and heavy.  As for Kee, not that I know of, but we don’t get much chance to visit.  Dae,” Thea called, and she came toward them with a smile for Data in passing.  “Heard from Kee lately?”

            “Kee who?”

            “Kee the guy you used to live with, that’s who,” Thea said.

            “Oh, him.”  Dae took a sip of her wine.  “No, I haven’t.  The last time I talked to him was…”  She paused to calculate.  “The last time he called was more than two years ago, two months after I moved home.  Had the gall to ask what I’d done with his disco albums.”

            “What did you do with them?” the giggling Lei demanded.

            “Nothing.  I hate disco.  If he hadn’t been such a slob he’d have found them himself.  But he decided to assume I was being vindictive.”  Dae grinned.  “If I’d wanted to be vindictive, I’d have scratched his stupid disco records with a nail.  On both sides.”

            “Wait,” said Tony, “I heard you were high-school sweethearts practically at the altar.”

            Dae snorted back a laugh.  “Not quite!  Looking back, it was over and done before we moved in together, but neither of us noticed.  Living together made that very obvious.  To me, anyway.”  She realized she had an audience, but decided she had no reason not to go on.  Most already knew the story anyway.  It was harmless, except the one part she never told.

            Kee was Kehoe Manolana.  His family had moved to Southern California from Kauai in the mid-Sixties when his father left the Navy for a job with one of the big aerospace companies.

            At six-three and two hundred ten muscular pounds, handsome as the average Hawaiian god, Kee was the undisputed star of their high school’s football team all four years.  Dae was still heavy much of that time and Kee never noticed her for all the other girls clamoring for his attention.  Besides, she would never clamor for any guy’s attention, certainly not that of some muscle-bound, no-brained football player.

            Then they ended up on the debate team together in their senior year.  She found him smarter than she had credited, and he realized he had ignored someone with a razor-sharp wit and brains to spare.  They became friends and promised to keep in touch after graduation.

            They did, as they took their separate paths, she to a dual major in accounting and theater arts, he to a degree in forensic sciences and the LAPD.  By the time they decided to start dating, almost five years ago, Kee was training to be an arson investigator.

            Their relationship went from friendly dating to lovers in a few months, and a year after that they decided to try living together.  Dae had some misgivings but could not articulate them, and Kee said he wanted her around all the time.  Since he said it the morning after one of their wilder nights together, Dae supposed that she should have known what he meant, “but love,” she remarked wryly, “is sometimes not just blind, but deaf, mute and stupid into the bargain.”

            Dae soon knew it was a big mistake.  Though they both worked long hours, Kee seemed to think she was a traditional American housewife.  Whether he got home at six p.m. or two a.m., he expected dinner, some entertaining conversation, and loving at his discretion.  Walking in at midnight to find cold leftovers and Dae still at the studio was not what he had in mind.  But then, cleaning up after someone who could never hit the hamper with his dirty socks and hid her art supplies during his half-hearted attempts at housework was not exactly Dae’s idea of heaven.

            She made better money than he at the time, and he volunteered only the bare minimum financially.  He preferred to let her spend her money and then argue about her purchases.  She saw things she’d not seen in him before; he was narrow-minded, and his self-confidence all too often crossed the border into arrogance.

            About the only place their relationship worked was in the bedroom, but for Dae, that was a lousy reason to stay.  Eight months after they moved in together, Minnie called Dae, explained she had joined POWR and was leaving the country, and what did Dae think about coming home to take care of the cats?  Since it had been the ugliest week with Kee yet and she’d already told her mom so, Dae thought it was an answer to prayer.  She packed, rented a moving van, called some friends, and carted her life back to Mt. Washington.

            “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really,” Dae told her audience, which included a rapt Data.  “We didn’t know each other as well as we thought.  He thought he was getting June Cleaver, and I expected a cross between Rudolph Valentino and Felix Unger.  No wonder it didn’t work out!”

 

            The leisurely meal ended about half past seven, the scanty leftovers were tucked into the fridge, and the spare trays and tables put aside.  Someone called out, “Hey, Cluny!  You and Doc are going to start us off, aren’t you?”

            Cluny protested, but even Data could tell it was just for show.  Ted, Tony, and a couple of the other guys moved Dae’s sound system outside, programmed the changer, and started to chant, “Dance, dance, dance!”  After that, Cluny would have had no choice anyway.

            She and Doc drew a quick round of applause for their country-flavored cha-cha, but before it got embarrassing they chose new partners to encourage other dancers.  Doc pulled Dae out of her chair, laughing, and gave her a little spin.  Cluny made a show of checking out her potential partners, then settled on Data.  He shook his head and said he had never learned to dance that way, but Cluny said, “Nonsense, Dana.  I’ll teach you.  Now stop playing hard to get!”

            Put that way, it would have been rude to refuse.

            Cluny was a good teacher and Data an excellent student.  All he had to do was modify the style Crusher had taught him.  As he pondered how little some forms of human interaction had changed in four centuries, he and Cluny danced past Dae and Doc, and suddenly he found Dae in his arms while Cluny and Doc chose other partners.

            “Well, hello there!” Dae said, and squeezed his hand.  “Having fun?”

            “Not as you would define it, perhaps,” he confessed in her ear, “but it is a most edifying and…enjoyable experience.  Are you having fun?”

            “Oh, yes!  You dance divinely, you know.  Why didn’t you ever tell me you could dance?”  She was teasing him, grinning, so he gave her his own brief smile and replied in a very logical voice that she had never asked.  “My mistake!  Any other entertaining talents I should know about?”  Ted and his girlfriend cut in before Data could answer.

            The dancing went on for a couple of hours before the music was turned down.  Then desserts and coffee appeared, and everyone relaxed again.

            A while later, Tony asked Ted if he had his guitar.  “Thought you’d never ask, pal.  Cara, you have your cajon?  Who else is on percussion?”  A few others went to get their instruments.  Ted looked back at Tony and asked, “Which one of your dad’s guitars did you steal?”

            “Steal?  Me, steal one of my _padre’s_ guitars?”  Tony shook his head.  “You must be crazy, Ted.  I asked very nicely, ‘Papa, can I ple-e-e-e-ease borrow one of your guitars?  It’s for sweet Davidíta’s party, Papa, you know how much she likes the guitar.’

“And Papa said, ‘For Davidíta?  Why didn’t you say so, Tonio, here, take my second-best guitar, have a good time, and make your papa proud, eh?  We’ll make a _mariachi_ of you yet.  And give Davidíta a kiss for me!’”  Tony went to Dae, who had a tray of brownies that made it to the table just in time, and put on his best Valentino manner.

            “Dae, _querida_ , I have to give you Papa’s kiss, don’t I?  You wouldn’t want me to disappoint him, would you?”

            He laughed at her giggles and put his arms around her, then bent her backwards and gave her a teasing kiss.  Data noted Dae put up only token resistance.  When Tony let her go, she was flushed and laughing.  “You’re outrageous!” she told him.  “Go try a little of that on Lei, if you expect to stay out of the doghouse, then go get your wonderful papa’s second-best guitar!”  He did as he was told, kissing Lei with serious enthusiasm before getting the instrument.

            The group played several songs.  When they took a break, Data asked to borrow Ted’s guitar.  Ted, startled, handed him the instrument.

            The android tuned up, then began _Danza españole no. 5_ from Granados’s _Andaluza_ , and segued into Tárrega’s _Five Preludios_.  As he played, he was surprised to realize he had missed engaging in some form of musical expression.

            The party was silent until the final chord melted away.  “You play well,” Tony complimented him.  “Maybe you should join Papa’s _mariachis_ instead of me.”

            Data shook his head.  “I do not have the…soul such music requires.”

            “Man, if that’s how you play _without_ soul, you could call the stars from the sky with only a little.”  He found Dae in the background and asked if she still had her guitar.

            “Ah, my failed musical experiment!  Sure.”  Tony suggested she unearth it for Data.

            After giving him a chance to tune it, Tony strummed the opening chords of the Eagles’ _Hotel California_.  Luckily, Data had heard it on one of Dae’s CDs, so he joined in.  Tony nodded at Ted, who started to sing.  Kat and Dae joined in, Kat on the high harmony line, Dae the low.

            The guests listened as each guitarist took a solo, the vocalists humming along.  Data thought about passing up his solo, but Dae gave him an encouraging nod so he played after all.  Tony ended the piece, and the group applauded.  Ted stood, clowning around and bowing, then asked, “Say, what does a star have to do to get a cup of coffee around here, anyway?”

            “Try reaching for the pot, Ted,” Doc told him, and made the rest laugh by rolling his eyes.  “Are you sure we brought the right one home from the hospital, Cluny?”

            “I’m afraid so, Madoc,” she answered with a sad shake of her head.  Ted ended up refilling everybody’s coffee cups.

            The guests helped to clean up and the gathering ended about midnight.  The last hangers-on were the ones Dae called her inner circle: Cluny and Doc, Ted and his girlfriend Liza, Thea, Tony and Lei, and Kat.  They sat in the living room with Data and Dae, rehashing the party’s funnier moments, praising the food and the good company.

            Tony said with a grin that Dae owed him a backrub in exchange for his kiss.  She reminded him the kiss was from his father, so she owed _him_ the backrub, not Tony.  He resorted to shameless begging, promising to “deliver” the massage, and Dae relented with a theatrical cracking of her knuckles.  Data watched, intrigued, as she made the rounds of the group to more than positive reactions.

            While she worked on Kat, Tony asked Data, “Have you had one of Dae’s backrubs yet?”

            “No,” the android replied in surprise.  “There has been no reason—”

            “Oh, Dae, you have to give Data a backrub!” Kat insisted.  “I want to see the look on his face!”  She patted his hand.  “Trust me, it is total bliss, you’ll love it!”

            _Unfortunately, I will not,_ he thought.  But when Dae glanced over, he nodded, determined to play along.  He could at least study her technique.

            She had strong, sensitive hands, a sculptor’s hands, he decided, and understood in clinical terms why the humans so enjoyed the experience.  Her attentions covered the area from his occiput to just below his scapulae.  To imitate the others, he let his shoulders fall and his head droop forward bit by bit.  “Careful,” Doc warned, “you’ll put him to sleep.”

            “No, she will not,” Data replied, his voice placid, “but it is quite…soothing.”  She knew what he was doing and spent as much time on him as on the rest, secretly ruffling his wig at the nape of his neck when she finished.  Data raised his head and thanked her.  He wondered who would reciprocate for her, and soon realized no one would.  “But why not?” he asked.

            The others exchanged sheepish looks when Ted said that, by the time Dae was done, they were too relaxed to return the favor.  Data invited Dae to sit down.  “Allow me,” he said and made her knuckle-cracking gesture, though his own were soundless.  He began with the back of her neck, copying her technique, careful to keep the makeup on his hands intact.  He improvised, too, massaging her arms and hands.

            Dae melted in appreciation.  Data refused, with a little smile, to demonstrate on the others, who volunteered fast enough for that.

            At last, with hugs and kisses all around—even for the astounded android—the guests left.

            Dae settled back into the cushions and propped her bared feet on the coffee table.  “You were full of surprises tonight,” she said, tired and happy.  “You dance well, give a terrific backrub, and are a wizard on the guitar.  How do you think you did?”

            “Thank you, twice,” he began, “and in response to your third observation, I believe I played well.  The ensemble piece was intriguing, as I do not normally play guitar as part of a group.  But I lack the ability to play with true emotion, since I have none to draw from.”

            She smiled denial.  “I meant, how do you think you did with the folks at the party?  I thought you fit in very well.”

            Her remark brought to mind the question he wished to ask.  He told her the things he noticed.  “It makes me wonder if you do, in fact, consider me your friend, since it appears I do not merit the same treatment.”

            “You know, you’re right.”  Dae frowned at her hands.  “I didn’t even realize it.  I guess I wasn’t sure what was usual between friends in your time, and I didn’t want to break any taboos.  Partly, too, we haven’t known each other very long.  I didn’t want you to think I was getting fresh.”  She smiled, then sighed, “And partly, I guess I just wasn’t thinking, which makes me as stupid as everybody else in your first twenty-five years.  Data, I’m sorry.”

            She sat up straighter.  “Now that I know what you think about the subject, I can do what I’ve wanted to do anyway.”  He asked what she meant, one eyebrow cocked.  “Just this.”  Dae put her arms around him and hugged him.  After a moment, he returned the embrace.  Then she left a gentle kiss on his cheek.  He had the thought that she was welcoming him to her life.  “You realize, I hope, that you’re about to be very popular?” she said.

            “In what way?” he asked as they sat back against the cushions, arms still around each other’s shoulders.

            “I expect the phone’ll start ringing about ten tomorrow morning, and every unattached girl, and half of the rest, will be asking you out.”

            “I do not think I should agree to any such invitation.  My attempts at romance have been notably unsuccessful.”  Though his tone was matter-of-fact, she sensed it bothered him.

            She said, “If you want to just be friends, then tell them.  If they want more, and I think some of them will, they can either accept that or leave you alone.”

            It sounded simple enough, when she said it.  “May I ask your advice, Dae?”

            “About anything, sugar,” she replied, eyes closing as she relaxed.

            This was encouraging.  There were many things he had never quite figured out how to ask his friends on the _Enterprise_.  “Thank you.  What is the connection between perfume and sex?  What makes something funny?  What is a low-mileage pit woofie?  Why—?”

            “Data, slow down!” she begged with a sleepy laugh.  “We’ve got plenty of time to play Twenty Questions.”  He was about to ask what that meant when she placed her fingers across his lips.  “But not tonight.  I really am bushed.”  She proved it with a huge yawn.  But instead of retiring to her room, she relaxed into the cushions and was soon asleep, head pillowed on his arm.

            “What a charming picture,” drawled Q.  He balanced on the arm of the sofa beside Dae, one booted heel on the end of it and his arms clasped around his knee.  He looked with pointed interest at Data’s hand on her shoulder.  “Getting chummy, are we?  Maybe I should have chosen you for my experiment in love,” he said with a shudder of distaste, “instead of Jean-Luc.”

            Data considered removing his hand but decided not to, since it might wake Dae.  Besides, he had no wish to give Q the satisfaction of governing his interactions with others.  The idea that he might be developing a stubborn streak occupied him for a picosecond before he spoke.  “I would not have been a suitable subject for such an investigation, since I cannot know that emotion, nor do I have more than a cursory understanding of its meaning.”

            Q considered the statement, made a face, and leaned along the back of the sofa.  “Perhaps that’s true, Data, but I must say, you certainly seem to have expanded your”—the alien’s salacious grin slid over Dae—“research parameters.”

            Data’s brows shot up so high his wig crinkled.  “You misunderstand, Q.  We are—”

            “I’m not interested,” interrupted Q.  “Whether or not you choose to engage in some revolting human mating practice is immaterial to me.  No, I’ve been watching you today and I wanted to see how convincing you think you were, that’s all.”

            “Convincing enough,” Data said, “since no one questioned my presence or behavior.”

            “Hmm, yes.”  Q frowned.  “I wonder what they’d have done if I’d shown up and exposed you for what you are.  I think I’ll find out.”  The alien started to snap his fingers.

            “Why turn back the clock?” Data asked with a sigh.  “They would probably have doubted the truth, or become afraid of me and fled.”  His quiet voice drew Dae closer in her sleep.

            “So the only way you can survive here is to hide?  What does that do to your theories about human goodness?” spat Q.  “To destroy someone without compunction, simply for being different, hardly sounds like a demonstration of goodness, wouldn’t you agree?”

            The android almost answered, but the avid look in Q’s eyes made him pause.  Q would interpret agreement as Data’s research results and expect him to condemn humanity.  He pinned the entity with a skeptical gaze.  “I said nothing of destruction,” Data pointed out.  “Children often fear what they do not understand.  In a way, these humans are children, with many painful lessons ahead.  But they will learn from those lessons, and be better than their forebears.”

            Q, put out by Data’s calm response and his easy discovery of the ruse, snapped, “It sounds as if you like it here, Data.  Good.  You’re liable to get more than your fill of it.  When you’re ready to give up, just call me.  I’ll be watching.”  His exit left a blinding afterimage.

            Data wondered exactly what Q meant, and found he was eager to begin his task again.  “Dae,” he whispered.  “Dae, if you remain in this position, you will undoubtedly find yourself with a ‘crick’ in your neck by morning.”  She murmured something unintelligible and nestled closer to him, her head rolling onto his shoulder, hair brushing his cheek.  Data decided he had no choice but to sit beside her until she woke.

            Oh, well.  One night away from his terminal would make no difference.  The android made sure Dae was settled and mentally resumed the program he was writing.

 

* * *

 

            “Their physiology is unremarkable,” Crusher was saying.  She stood at the viewer and pointed to a display of plesiapod anatomy.  “There are no organs we can’t identify by analogy with other aquatic mammals, and none seem capable of generating the bioelectric field found by Lieutenant D’Sora.”

            “Then what causes it, Doctor?” asked Picard.

            She, and the various teams, had been trying to answer that question for the best part of two days.  “We don’t know.  Their muscle and nerves structures are typical of many sea mammals.  And their brains, which equal ours in complexity, have no unusual features.”  Crusher paused.  “It might be a galvanic skin response on a much larger scale than we’ve seen before.”

            Picard turned from the display.  “What about this sentience you’re aware of, Counselor?”

            “I’d like to spend more time on Brethal, sir.  The impressions are much stronger there than here, and if I’m there when the field peaks, perhaps I can make contact.”

            He asked Sthal if that would meet with her people’s approval, and she replied they were now equally curious about their silent companions.  Certain cultural taboos demanded they maintain a distance between their camps, but otherwise the captain could send as many people as needed.  And any Malèdri who were not otherwise engaged would be glad to help.

            Picard nodded.  “Thank you.  Number One, treat it as an away mission.  Set up camp across the bay from the Malèdri and stay down there until you find some answers.”

 

            Riker beamed down with Troi, D’Sora, and six members of Aquatic Sciences.  Crusher would join them as needed, and La Forge swam over from the aquaforming dome with some technicians and a few Malèdri to help set up the team’s shelters and equipment.  The first officer looked around in approval.  “This is the southern subtropical zone, isn’t it?”  Lieutenant Koval of Aquatic Sciences agreed and Riker went on, “I’ve never seen conifers like these in the tropics!”  The trees growing at the edge of the beach resembled fir and blue spruce.

            “They aren’t conifers, Will,” corrected Troi.  “They may smell like cedar, but according to the scans, they’re deciduous.  I like it here, it’s restful.”

            He raised an eyebrow.  “Are you sensing anything yet?”

            She shook her head.  D’Sora checked her tricorder and said the field was one hour, twelve minutes shy of its peak.  “That gives us time for a little exploring,” Riker grinned, “if I can talk some of our Malèdri friends into coming along!  Everybody’s off duty for an hour.  We’ll meet at 1330 hours and see if Counselor Troi can make contact.”  He walked toward the stream.  Realizing he was alone, he looked back.  “Well, isn’t anybody going to join me?”

            The engineering techs wanted another swim.  All but one of the Aquatic Sciences team agreed, but Ensign Daimanis trotted over to Riker with two of the Malèdri.  Discussing exobotany, they headed into the trees.  Troi, basking in the sunshine, tried to attune herself to the plesiapods.  D’Sora, undecided, felt a gentle tug on her braid.  When she smiled, La Forge led her around the sea wall until they were hidden from the camp.

            They kissed, greedy for each other.  His work on the aquaforming station and hers on the bioelectric field meant their schedules conflicted too often to suit either.  He stopped kissing her long enough to pull off his boots and challenge her to a race, then took off down the coast.  She pulled off her boots, too, and followed him.

            The coast turned back on itself, a miniature peninsula.  Trees like banyans with huge blossoms blocked the way.  She stopped to listen and heard splashing, so she ducked under the fragrant canopy.  A stream crossed her path and she leaped across.  A few yards later, a crescent of empty sand washed by green-violet waves met her eyes.  “Geordi?  Where are you?”

            “This way,” his voice coaxed her.  She looked around again, turned left to follow a shadow, then felt a hand brush hers.

            “Oh, don’t leave so soon,” La Forge whispered.  He tugged her back until they stood in the perfumed dimness.

            “How much time do we have?” D’Sora asked, giving him a soft kiss.

            “I think, Jenna,” he replied, “we have barely enough.”

 

            They reached camp just before Riker and the others returned from the coastal forest.  The first officer noticed La Forge’s bemused smile and D’Sora’s blush, drew the obvious conclusion and restrained a comment.  “Lieutenant D’Sora,” he said, “when will the field peak?”

            “If it follows the documented pattern, sir, it should be about six more minutes.”

            “Good.  Deanna, are you ready?”  As the empath nodded, Riker leaned his head toward D’Sora and said in a low voice, “It might be best, Lieutenant, if you asked Commander La Forge to brush the sand out of your hair before returning to the ship.  Despite the attractive sparkle it adds, you know what a stickler Captain Picard is for the proprieties.”  He left her side with a raffish grin to be sure the equipment was set up to record the experiment.

            She stared at his retreating back and fought the urge to throw her tricorder at him as she reported the field strength was increasing.

            Troi faced the mouth of the bay.  _Hello, out there._ She smiled; even for a mental comment, it sounded trite. _I begin to sense you.  We wish to be friends, to learn of you and let you learn of us.  Will you let us know you?_

            Troi continued the silent beseeching several minutes—until she stumbled back with a gasp.  Riker lunged for her.  “Deanna?  Are you getting something?”

            “Yes,” she breathed.  Now there was no surprise, only the pleasure of contact with a new sort of mind.  “Yes.  It’s very strong, stronger than I’ve felt before.  I don’t understand it yet, but I will.  I’m sure of it.”  She described what she felt as great intelligence, curiosity, and caution.  She kept talking, first to the mysterious sentience, then to the away team, so they could record her impressions along with their readings.

            D’Sora, monitoring the field in the bay, stood beside Riker and reported it was twice as strong as any previous reading.  She pointed to the bay mouth.  “Look at the plesiapods!”

            They surfaced, all of them, leaping one after another to stand straight out of the water with strokes of their tails.  Troi’s face glowed.  “They are so joyful!  They didn’t know we were sentient because they couldn’t touch our minds, but they could touch the tresh during the field spike.  The tresh were happy because they were communicating with the plesiapods.”

            She stopped, her expression awed.  “There’s something else, so great I can sense only the fringes of it.  Where are you?” she called to it.  .

            A moment later she was screaming: something reached inside her and nearly tore her shrieking mind from its hinges before it withdrew, with far more care.  Then it touched the rest, on the planet and on the ship.  It held them as it had Troi, too tightly to move, or talk or think.  And when it passed, it left them scattered on the beach or at their stations like so much driftwood.

            Then the field dropped to normal levels, and the plesiapods slid beneath the waves.

            “Now that,” muttered Riker just as he lost consciousness, “is what I call making contact.”

            Half the Malèdri swam across the bay about five minutes later.  The officers were coming around and comparing notes on the experience.  “The tresh are going wild,” Sthal said before she was well out of the surf.  “You were touched as well?”

            “Knocked out is more like it,” Koval replied.  She and La Forge helped Troi up, then Riker swept her into a chair and waited until she said she was recovering.

            “All right, let’s have some order here,” Riker called out.  He tapped his communicator to have Crusher beam down and make sure the incident hadn’t caused permanent damage.  “Sthal, your group experienced the same thing?  Will you describe it for us, starting from the field spike?  D’Sora, when was it?”

Never had ten minutes felt longer.

 

* * *

 

            They were as thoroughly occupied as members of the insect family _Apidae_ , as Data put it.  “Just say busy as bees,” Dae giggled under her breath once.

            “I believe I just did,” he replied.

            He helped her take her zoo to the vet’s for physicals and shots.  All but Malta were in good shape, and for the dog’s worst problems there was no cure, though the vet recommended adding a buffered aspirin to her food every day to ease her hip pain.

            Data’s company, CompCon in the shorthand of the S-net, was profitable; he insisted on paying some of those profits to Dae for his use of her office, and paid part of the upkeep for her pets.  Still, work occupied only a little of his time, and during lulls he linked hard drives and servers, trying to approximate the sophisticated computers of his own time.

            They spent whole days at the library while he memorized texts on computers, engineering, sociology, psychology, electronics, and a dozen other subjects.  He wanted to be totally familiar with this era and the conditions that produced it.  Not to imply he held popular literature beneath his consideration—the kinds of things a society read for play could reveal the public mindset, too, so he devoured whole shelves of fiction lost to his time.

            And then there were the museums, like the old Getty with its illuminated manuscripts and ornate French furniture and ancient pottery, the Huntington and its roses.

            Dae took him down the coast from L.A. to San Diego, where he gave her a detailed architectural critique of the Hotel del Coronado after a harbor cruise.  They stopped at San Juan Capistrano on the way back, and the mission there symbolized for Data both mankind’s desire to do good, and its egotistical belief that one group could force its customs on another and call it progress and “God’s will,” even though the recipients of this attention often died of it.

            She taught him to drive in a mall parking lot early one morning and let him drive on the open highway and the back roads, but cautioned him during one of their day trips not to drive without her.  “You don’t have a driver’s license,” she explained when he asked why. 

            He pulled off the road.  “Then I should obtain one.  How is this accomplished?”

            Dae chuckled.  “Oh, it’s not hard.  Just pass a written test and a driving test, which you could, easily.  After you’ve proved you’re a legal resident, usually with a birth certificate or something like that.  I don’t mind taking you places, don’t worry about it.”

            “I appreciate the generosity of your offer.  But I will eventually need to procure transportation of my own, and cannot continue to inconvenience you.”

            “Then how are you at forgery?”  He tilted his head as if to protest the suggestion.  “Well, my friend, either you forge the background documents, or you go straight to forging a license.  Either of which can land you in jail.”

            “You seem to have a fine grasp of the potential illegalities required.”

            She gave him a strange look.  “Do I, now?”  Books sometimes described characters bristling, and the android had wondered how such a condition might look.  He found out now.  Dae went stiff in the passenger seat, eyes flashing, and a dull flush climbed from her neck.  “I’m sorry if my innate dishonesty offends you,” she snapped, “but I’m not the one who dropped you here with no way to fend for yourself.”  Jaws clenched, she stared out the window.

            “You misunderstand,” said Data.  “It was not intended as a criticism.  I only meant that I will likely need to counterfeit a number of documents to masquerade as a human, and you have considered my dilemma and provided me information I lacked.  I appreciate your help.  I never meant to imply that I think you a dishonest person, because I have no such belief.”

            He rarely touched people at home; except when shaking hands, he somehow never thought it quite acceptable.  It was different in the here-and-now, though, so he rested a hand on her tense shoulder.  “I am sorry I hurt you, Dae.”

            Dae heaved a deep sigh.  Patting his hand, she said, “Thanks, sugar.  That makes me feel better.  Well, should we finish our trip?”

 

            Every Friday, and many Sundays, they gave a small dinner party.  It was the best way to let Data hone his cooking skills without wasting food.  He turned out to be an excellent chef, though he usually under- or over-seasoned if left to himself.  And when not cooking, he ate.  The _Enterprise_ replicators offered so many choices that old-fashioned Terran cuisine was a rarity.

            He used every chance to expand his experiences in the areas of food and drink, and Dae was happy to help.  From her, he learned about thick, juicy pastrami sandwiches and crisp fries and ketchup, crisp-soft pears and Brie with walnuts, _carnitas_ in fresh tortillas with a dash of cactus salsa.  Juicy watermelon that endangered his makeup, Indian and Thai curries so spicy-hot that fine beads of sweat popped out on Dae’s forehead, the spare purity of sushi and sashimi, dim sum, Southwest, Italian, all fed Data’s insatiable appetite for knowledge and experience.

            One of her favorite things was to picnic.  They might pack the wicker hamper at home, or fill it on their way as part of the outing, then pick a destination for lunch, a bluff overlooking the ocean, perhaps, or a meadow of wildflowers and tall grasses.

            Dae asked him once, since he had no need to eat, what happened to the food he consumed?  Data explained that his father designed him to draw all available nutrients from food for use by his biological components while breaking down the rest for energy to augment his self-regenerative power cells.  It was, he said, a vast improvement over the human digestive system.  And as a biomechanical life-form, human food could not meet all his needs, so he looked for substitutes for his usual semi-organic nutrients in liquid silicon.  Light machine oil and ground computer chips came closest to filling the bill.

            Data also had a few dates.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

13

 

 

            Dae was right about Data’s sudden popularity.  He got at least one invitation a day for several weeks; two-thirds of the callers gave up when he said he was not interested in a romance.  His abortive relationship with Jenna was always in his mind and he had no wish to fail anyone else in that way.

            One evening, he came home earlier than expected from a date.  Dae was in her room reading; she stayed awake every time he went out—though she always told herself she was _not_ waiting up for him.

            He tapped on her door and asked if he might talk with her.  It was a scorching night and she padded into the living room barefoot, wearing shorts and a halter-top, a glass of water in hand.  Her hair, knotted on top of her head, loosed tendrils that clung to a film of sweat on her neck and face.  She sat on the sofa nearest the open windows, fanned herself with a magazine, and asked what was on his mind.

            In deference to human perceptions of the weather, Data had worn a short-sleeved white shirt with his jeans, and even had two shirt buttons unbuttoned instead of his usual one.  He sat opposite her, cool and composed and very confused, and told her about his evening.

 

            Thea picked him up at half past six for their second date.  He complimented her attire and asked what she had in mind to do.  Dinner and a movie, she replied, if it suited him.

            Their dinner conversation was general.  Thea wondered how his various projects were going; he asked if she had any vacation plans.  He and Dae, he said, were considering an extended road trip, a drive up the coast to San Francisco, which he had not visited in several years (the simple truth, in its own time-convoluted way), then to Las Vegas to see the new casinos.  The city would also be convenient to visit the Grand Canyon and some Native American destinations.

            Thea thought it sounded like fun.  Then she casually asked if he and Dae were more than just roommates.  The question startled him.  “We are friends,” he answered, as if it should have been self-evident.  His dinner companion smiled a little wider, her even white teeth an agreeable contrast to skin the color of espresso, and her dark eyes sparkled.

            When they finished their meal, Data paid the check and they left for the movie.

            He expected a theater.  Other dates at such places had fascinated him, giving him the chance to observe others unnoticed.  And popcorn was an interesting foodstuff, even slathered with imitation butter flavoring and loaded with copious amounts of sodium chloride.  Chocolate-covered raisins, on the other hand, had a disconcerting tendency to stick to his teeth.

            So it surprised him when Thea turned in at a drive-in and chose a parking place in a dim section of the lot.  It was an older theater modernized to broadcast the soundtrack over the radio.  Thea opened the moonroof, turned off the motor and tuned the radio to the right frequency, then asked if he wanted anything from the snack bar.  He said no.  She smiled again.

            Data recognized the film as a self-proclaimed “erotic thriller” he had seen with Kat the week before.  He had watched her carefully, especially during the more explicit portions, and was relieved when she only clutched his arm at moments of tension or laughed at the outlandish plot.

            The android thought Thea might find the film more inspiring than amusing.

            Her car had a bench seat.  Twenty minutes into the film, she slid next to him.

            Sexuality—its current mores and its historical customs, the bonding rituals progressing from “just friends” through intimacy—was the subject of many television programs.  He accessed some of them and recognized the invitation inherent in Thea’s action.  At this point, Data found, the male’s most common response was to put his arm around the female by either overt or covert means.  But that response assumed the ritual would advance to its reasonable conclusion.

            Data wondered whether he should accept Thea’s invitation.  She was a friend of Dae’s and a nice person in her own right, and he had no wish to disappoint her but perhaps, if he proceeded with care….  A millisecond later, Data put his arm around her.  He ignored the similarity between this and pulling Jenna to him for their second kiss, and concentrated on the present instead.

            His date cuddled up to him.  Was this a clue for continued action, or merely a pause in the proceedings?  She watched the film, caught up in the story Data still found unconvincing.  Part of his mind performed file searches, adapting the results to his current situation.  Another part of him tried to predict when Thea would make her next move.  The first tryst between hero and heroine occurred thirty-two minutes into the film.  That seemed the most likely moment.

            He predicted correctly.  As the minutes leading to the romantic screen encounter elapsed, Thea put a hand on his knee.  At T minus one she slid one arm around his waist, put the other across his chest onto his shoulder, and lifted her face.  Data kissed her.

            She was not enthralled and pulled back, doubt filling her eyes.  Realizing that his other hand was still on the armrest, he put it around her waist and kissed her again.

            It went nowhere.  She let him go and said, “This isn’t working, is it?”

            He looked at her with an expression of unfelt sadness.  “No, Thea, I do not believe it is.”

            She turned off the radio, which was broadcasting the panting accompaniment to the filmic encounter, and started the car.  “Oh, well.  Win a few, lose a few.  No hard feelings?”

            “Not at all.  I would be pleased to remain friends, if you wish.”  A wry shrug, one more smile, and she drove him home.  No conversation lightened the awkward silence.

 

            Dae’s face was sympathetic.  “I’m sorry, Data.  I assumed, from what you said after your first date, Thea was okay with the ‘no entanglements’ clause.”

            “As did I.  It seems we both erred.”  He sighed.  “I do not know what else I could have done.”

            “That’s just the way it is sometimes.  No fireworks.”

            He tilted his head toward her.  “Fireworks?”  Jenna had mentioned fireworks, but in a different context.  “I do not understand.”

            “Fireworks.  You know, no sparks.”  Still that blank, questioning gaze.  “No chemistry.  No attraction.”

            “Ah,” he said, “these analogies all refer to the emotional or physical reactions of someone engaged in intimacy?”  She nodded.  “No wonder I fail.  I cannot feel, therefore I cannot properly inspire feeling in others.”

            “Now, wait,” protested Dae.  “Just because you and Thea didn’t hit it off, that doesn’t mean you won’t with somebody else!”

            “You do not understand.  I have never had a successful romantic relationship.  Until last year, I had _never_ had such a relationship.  But I wish to understand!” he told her.  “It is such a large part of life for humans.  That my father made me able to experience only part of it, and that part only partially, merely increases my wish to experience it fully.”  Data looked past Dae to the stars visible through the window, then focused on her again.  “You said I could ask you for advice, that you would do what you could to help me.  Were you serious?”

            An unequivocal yes was what he most needed, she thought, and so she gave him one.

            “I have, in fact, attempted only one romantic relationship, at the overture of the woman.”  He paused to recall Jenna’s kiss, and how her interest in him turned to disappointment.  How he failed her.  He told Dae about it, from that first fervent kiss in the torpedo bay to the deletion of his self-designed romantic program.  “Will you help me understand romance, Dae?”

            Dae blinked.  “I’ll do what I can.  Where would you like to start?”  _Maybe_ , she thought, _I shouldn’t have agreed so quickly.  What if he means—_

            “Having heard about my experiences,” Data replied, “what would you recommend?”

            Flustered by the suddenness of his question, she thought it over.  Since both Jenna and Thea had negative reactions to his kissing, she said that was a good place to start.  He joined her on her sofa, ready to begin.  “Wait, you’d better take off your makeup.  If we’re going to do this right”— _good grief, what am I_ saying _?_ —“I don’t want to end up wearing it, too.”

            He had his wig off before he reached the bathroom.  After four minutes of cold cream and warm water he sat beside her again, in the same clothes but looking like his true self.  “All right,” she said.  “What did you and Jenna do first?”

            Data said he had dimmed the lights.  Dae always left a light on for him when he went out; now she turned the lamp as low as it would go.  “Then what?”  The android, his face expectant, held his open arm along the back of the sofa.  When she sat beside him, he closed his other arm around her, tilted his head to avoid bumping noses, and kissed her.

            She gave it sixty seconds to be sure, then tapped his shoulder.  He removed his lips from hers but still embraced her.  “Is that the way you kissed Thea, too?”  He said yes.  “I think I know what’s wrong.”  His eyebrows went up in question.  “For one thing, it’s like you’re sitting at attention when you should be relaxed.  As for the kiss itself…well, you initiated it, but then you went passive.  As if you didn’t know what to do next.”

            “Which is, to be blunt, the case.  My programming indicates a number of options, but not how to decide which, if any, should be implemented in a specific situation.”

            “Nobody’s ever kissed you any differently?”

            He started to mention Tasha but stopped himself.  They had kissed, among a number of other activities that she apparently found pleasurable, but it was an unusual case.  It seemed clear he could not reproduce those kisses without benefit of a Tsiolkovsky infection.  He chalked it up to Tasha’s active lead and the virus’s inhibition-reducing effects, although he had never thought of his usual behavior as inhibited.

            Dae saw his conflict, buried a sudden curiosity, and said, “Well, never mind.  You remember what we did about your smile?  Maybe the same method will work for kisses.  See if you can tell the difference.”  She put her arms around his neck and kissed him while thinking the coldest, most unromantic things possible.  She broke off for a moment, then moved back to him.

            This time she concentrated on his lips, their curvature and softness, and how nice it would be if she could get through to him.  She remembered how good his pale-gold chest looked by firelight.  She drew on all the romantic experiences she’d ever had and wound her arms around him, let her body mold to his, and found herself feeling very, and quite unexpectedly, passionate.  She added that to her kiss, too, afraid her pounding heart and breathless little sighs taught him more than she intended.  When she drew back she was blushing, torn between disappointment and relief when Data began to tell her the results of his comparative analysis.

            “The second kiss was far more complex than the first, indicative of greater interest, and involved the ‘whole person,’ as it were, rather than just the lips.  Its interactive quality carries a number of intriguing connotations.”  He shook his head.  “Jenna and I never kissed that way.”

            “Maybe Jenna didn’t want to,” Dae blurted out.  Data’s look made her sorry.  “Geordi told you she might have been on the rebound.  Maybe she didn’t admit that to herself.  I think, if she’d wanted to kiss the way we just did, she’d have found a way to let you know.”

            “She may have been waiting for me to take the initiative.  That, in turn, may have led her to realize my nature is not conducive to romance.”

            Jenna had known he was an android, had she not?  Dae said that since every romance depended on two people for its success, both might also be responsible for its failure.  “It’s her loss if she didn’t think through the ramifications of your nature.  If she wanted more romantic kisses, she should have told you.  There are ways of saying things that don’t make it sound like a fault.  Communication is vital if a relationship is going to have a chance in hell of surviving.”

            Something about the way she spoke made him ask, “Have you experienced a failed romance?”

            “You mean besides the one with Kee?  Sure, several.  But Kee’s and mine died as much from lack of communication as anything else.  He refused to believe we had any problems discuss, and preferred to do his communicating in more…um, basic ways, anyway,” Dae said as she blushed again.  Pleasant as they might have been, those other ways were not enough to save their relationship.  And hoping things would get better on their own wasn’t enough, either.

            “I mean, whether you’re a couple or just friends, you have to feel comfortable saying what you think, good or bad.  If you don’t, maybe you’re with the wrong person.  Well,” she said, hiding discomfort behind brisk words, “we’ve gotten off track.  Think you can do what I did?”

            He looked unsure.  “One of Jenna’s objections was to my thinking about other topics while kissing her.  She implied it detracted from the experience.”  Her expression at that juncture still gave him pause.  “I do not know if I can stop such an innate process.”

            “Nice as it is to think you have someone’s whole attention, it’s probably unrealistic.  Just make the person you’re with your first concern.  That way, if she asks what you were thinking about, you can honestly say you were thinking about her.  You don’t have to volunteer the rest.”  She winked at him, and he smiled a bit in answer.  And then he pressed his lips to hers.

            He could not relax as she had, but he could and did mimic some of the effect.  Though his embrace retained a mechanical stiffness, it was both firmer and more supple.  Dae seemed to approve.  He integrated the details of her kiss into his programming, turned it back on her.  It yielded a slight, perhaps approving, modification of her technique, so he responded in kind.

            These minute interactions opened his intellectual eyes.  Some of his lack of success, he gathered, was due to not knowing how to behave in order to elicit increasingly positive responses.  The concept demanded further exploration, so he called on another segment of his programming and attempted to make the kiss more compelling.  A number of physiological changes indicated Dae’s continuing approval.  He increased the intensity level one more notch.

            The effect on Dae was positively electric.

            One more second, and she thought she would give him even more of an education than he bargained for.  But why think?  Why not give in to what she felt, allow nature to take its course?  But hadn’t he said his father had made him so he could experience only some of his programming?  What exactly did that mean?  She was on the verge of doing her best to find out.  Data might be a beginner, but he was certainly a fast learner.  No one had _ever_ kissed her like he did.  Dae thought about asking what else he wanted to learn…or maybe, was there anything he wanted to teach?

            Ending that kiss was the hardest thing Dae ever contemplated, but she had to do it, if she wanted to salvage any dignity at all.  Her body felt slick with sweat and pounded in time to her own heartbeat.  Never in her life had she been more willing.  Did he have any idea at all, she wondered, how he affected her?  With a deep reluctance she tried to hide, Dae brought the kiss to a close.

            It took a little time before she felt able to meet his eyes.  There he sat, still cool, still composed, his shirt so rumpled it brought another blush to her face.  He asked, “Did I perform adequately, Dae?”  Curiosity, and nothing else, lit his features.

            Adequate?  She was ready to seduce him at the drop of a hat and he wanted to know if he was _adequate?_   “Um, yes.  More than adequate.”  She forced down her enthusiasm, a bit too far, because his look was doubtful.

            “Your tone of voice implies you are trying to spare the feelings I do not have.  It is all right to tell me if I require more practice,” the android said, sounding almost chipper, and he put his arms around her.  It started all over again, and she had no way to fight it, and less inclination.

            She dragged her imagination away from all the promising thoughts tumbling through it, pulled away and said, “I think you’ve got the idea.”  He looked like a little boy who got an A on his first test.  “Just one thing.”  His glance asked her to go on.  “Don’t unleash that full-tilt unless you plan to get serious.  Really, really serious.”  She swallowed hard.  “Anything else on your mind?”

            “Not at the moment.  You have given me a great deal of information and several new variables to consider.  Thank you for your assistance.”

            “My pleasure.”  Dae flushed but he missed the potential innuendo.  “I’m going to bed then.  Goodnight, Data.”

            “Goodnight, Dae.”  Shaking, she carried her glass to the kitchen.  When she came back, it was brimming with ice cubes and water.  She headed straight to her room but he said, “Are you not going to kiss me goodnight?”

            After his observations on the treatment of friends, she started saying hello and good-bye with a hug and a kiss, having vowed to treat him as she would any other friend.

            Until tonight, it seemed a perfectly harmless habit.  “Sorry.  I thought you might have had enough.”  He met her at the archway, where they exchanged their usual friendly greeting.  She smiled and went to her room, shutting the door behind her as she always did.

            Then she very quietly shut the door to the master bath, took off every stitch of clothing, and stood under a very cold shower for a very long time.

            Data heard the sounds, but only shrugged and went back to the computer.

 

* * *

 

            At sunset, Picard and Crusher met with the Away Team at the makeshift conference table on the beach.  Riker summarized the preliminary findings.

            The plesiapods’ telepathic communication caused the bioelectric field, which intensified when the other intelligence, whatever its origin, was active.

            The mental probes of this other entity hurt only Troi, and only on the initial contact; she felt no malice behind it.  It was, she said, more like a potent but uncontrolled curiosity, cautious yet benign of intention; it took one big telepathic bite of each personality, then smaller tastes of everyone’s various experiences.

            For the ship’s counselor, it was the mechanics of her empathic talents; for La Forge, his unique vision and knowledge of warp theory.  Picard relived his loneliest moments with the Borg Collective, but these memories were balanced by remembrances of summer days spent in his family vineyards.  The smell of grapes and warm earth still lingered in his mind.

            “This unknown entity, then,” he said, “has studied us as completely as we’ve been trying to study Brethal.  Counselor, did anything indicate it might reveal itself to us?”

            Troi shook her head.  The contact still held most of her attention.  Because of her own talents, she got a few impressions from the entity the others missed.  For one thing, she had sensed satisfaction, which led her to put forth the notion that the Malèdri idea to come to Brethal was not the Malèdri’s idea at all.

            “You mean this entity _called_ them here?” asked Crusher in disbelief.  “But why?”

            “I can’t even begin to know, Beverly,” the empath replied.  “I only felt a sense of a plan nearing completion.  What do your people think of all this, Sthal?  Threrr?”

            Threrr said, “We do not know what to think.  The tresh are happy, as are we.  Our project goes better than expected.  In truth, this one corner of the planet, land and sea, is remaking itself to suit us without harming its native species.  Everything here is as attractive to us as our own home, and as welcoming.”  He looked at Sthal and she nodded.  “The transition has been almost too easy; if Deanna says we have been called here, I cannot dispute it.”

 

            The creature was huge, six times larger than the largest plesiapod picked up by the ship’s sensors.  She could still remember her parents, the gentle touch of her mother’s tentacles helping her to the surface for her first breath, her father’s fleet but reverent pursuit of prey, their leading of the entire pod, all four hundred, through the seas on a pilgrimage to the Reth.

            She was the Reth now.

            Her home lay halfway around the planet from the little group of many species clustered on the beach.  She spent her time swimming with lazy swiftness from one continent to another, checking on the children, and Searching.  The children came to her, too, there were pilgrimages yet, though she still felt a little amusement at being the one to receive the honor.

            But for century after century her Search had been fruitless, and she was growing old.

            Despite the pilgrimages and her Searching, the one who could continue to fulfill the destiny of the Reth did not appear.  Each day, her fear grew.  Not knowing what else to do, she looked to the land, and found no answer to her call.  And then she looked to the great spinning furnaces that warmed Brethal and her companions—and found Maledin VIII in the great dark.

            There were children here, too, though not like hers.  Gentle, yet strong at need, they had powers they did not yet understand, powers that could help them fulfill the Reth’s plans.  And they were friends with many others, from places even the Reth could hardly imagine.

            Those who brought the Malèdri, for example, were curious about her and her children.  They had no plans to do anything with the knowledge but enjoyed the search for its own sake.  Intrigued, she decided to introduce herself after all.  She regretted causing them pain, but when her children called out in joy at the mind-touch of the one, the Reth’s eagerness made her thoughtless.  Still, the one hurt held no ire, and the Reth was pleased.  Yes, it was time to meet.

            She heaved her bulk out of the cavern where she rested.  It was time to breathe, anyway.  Flippers and flukes propelled her to the surface.  She had called, and they had come, and once she understood their needs, she helped, and they showed no sign of wishing to leave.  She felt almost young as she breached, her vastness sending waterspouts three hundred meters into the air.

            A pod of her children heard her landing from several kilometers away and raced toward her, diving and leaping.  They found her swimming toward the southern passage and asked if they could come along.  Their clicks and chittering rebounded off her hide.  Her reply, a mammoth bellow ending in a supersonic squeal, invited them to try and keep up.

 

            Nothing happened during the next field spike.  The Away Team stayed on the surface anyway, hoping that since Troi had made contact once, she could do it again.

            D’Sora set up a portable console linked to the ship’s computer to collate the team’s data, as well as study telemetry from the probes launched to seek the missing Data.  She was doing just that when a breath tickled her ear.  “You couldn’t sleep either?” she asked.

            “Nope.”  La Forge pulled a chair beside hers with a nod to the screen.  “Any luck?”

            “None,” she sighed, and he kissed her forehead.  “I just don’t know what we’re doing wrong.  The probes are set to pick up every energy signature you think Data’s body could produce, every type of communications signal, the slightest trace of every metal, chemical, alloy, or compound in his construction, and…nothing.  It’s like he never existed.”

            He put his arms around her, appreciating her concern.  “I don’t know, either, Jenna.  Why don’t you give it up for tonight, come over to my place?”  He gestured to the furthest of the shelters scattered around the campsite.  The sound of the waves against the rocky outcrops was very soothing, he said, and she might be able to relax.  “And if the waves don’t do it, I can think of a few things that might help.”  She shook her head and disentangled herself.

            “Not just now, please.  I’m not very good company.  Maybe later?”

            He smiled a little and kissed her cheek.  “You know where to find me.”

            Alone again, D’Sora stared at the screen, then blanked it and looked toward La Forge’s shelter _._   A sigh escaped as she scrolled through the computer index, then stopped it.

            She had skimmed many of the _Enterprise_ mission records, but not all of them.  Since she had insomnia anyway, she settled down to read.

            A few minutes later her fingers were flying over the console pad as she input the parameters for a data search.  One she hoped, with a smothered giggle, would help in their Data search.  The results came back in a few minutes.  _It may not be the right answer, but it’s more than we had.  Maybe I better talk to…somebody…and see if it makes any sense._

            La Forge raised his head from the pillow when he heard footsteps heading his direction.  He propped himself up on one elbow to put on his VISOR and recognized D’Sora’s thermal radiation pattern.  “Come on in,” he whispered when she paused.

            “I didn’t know if you were still awake,” she whispered back as he made room for her on the bed.  She sat down and told him about her idea.  “Do you think I’m grasping at straws?”

            He sat up and tapped his communicator.  “La Forge to Commander Riker,” he said, “sorry to bother you, sir, but Lieutenant D’Sora just came up with a new theory about Data’s disappearance.  I think it has merit; if you concur, I recommend we present it to the captain as soon as possible.”

            “Come on over,” Riker replied, “I’m all ears.”

 

* * *

 

            They planned to leave on a Friday afternoon, stay the night in San Luis Obispo, then head to Hearst Castle.  They would take the coastal route to Carmel, visit the Monterey Aquarium, and go on to San Francisco for a few days.

            Then they would cross the state to Lake Tahoe, drive down to Yosemite and Mono Lake, and finish in Vegas, with a side trip to the Grand Canyon.  Data took care of everything, from buying tickets to the Castle to making all the motel reservations to doing the packing, which Dae said he did much better than she ever had!  She asked Kat to house-sit, promising they would return by the Fourth of July weekend since filming started again on the fifth.

            Dae wondered how she and Data would get along in such close quarters.  He never asked for another kissing lesson, never mentioned practicing with anyone else, but she thought about it a lot.  It forced her to admit—to herself—that she was attracted to him.  She resolved to bury the feeling, afraid knowing it would make him uncomfortable.  Or whatever the android equivalent might be.

            Yet she had to be curious when they checked into their room in San Luis Obispo and she saw one table, two chairs—and one queen-sized bed.  “Is there anything you wanted to tell me?” she asked when they got the last of their bags inside.

            He followed her glance to the bed.  “Is it not the same size as your own, Dae?  I assumed you would prefer that.”

            “It’s not the size, it’s that there’s only one bed.  Are you going to sit up all night?”

            Confused, he said, “You know I do not require sleep, so I brought a number of books.  There are also publications available in the lobby, and I can continue to work on my evaluation program, and many of my clients’ problems.”  His voice dropped.  “Would you prefer I stay elsewhere?  I can sit in the car—”

            “Data.”  He stopped.  She sat down, nodded for him to sit.  He looked so worried, so…innocent.  There were certainly things he had missed about this era.  “The reservation’s in your name, right?  Did any of the questions the clerk asked sound like ‘how many beds’?”

            The android accessed his memory record of the conversation.  No, the clerk only asked his name, how many in his party, and the number of rooms required.  When he said two in the party, the clerk said, “One room then, sir?”  Data had agreed.

            Now he paused.  “I see I may have erred.  I assumed you would not mind our sharing quarters.  I am sorry.  I will see if another room is available.”  He stood.

            “No, don’t bother.”  She sighed and smiled, and he sat down again.  “Maybe I should have mentioned it, but you seemed to have everything under control.  I guess there’s no way you could have known, so don’t worry about it.

            “Don’t sit in the car.  Not only would I feel guilty throwing you out of your own room,” she grinned, “but it’ll look awfully strange if you do, and there’s no sense in attracting undue attention, is there?”

            When he nodded, she went on, “The only thing is, when Housekeeping comes in to make the bed, it might cause comment if it looks like only one person used it.  Maybe not here, it’s just for one night, but at some other places along the way, where we’re staying longer.”  She strove to be casual as she asked if all the rooms he reserved would have only one bed.

            Since the reservation processes had been nearly identical, he said it was possible.

            Dae blushed.  “Then you’re going to have to spend at least some part of every night in bed.  To mash the pillows and sheets convincingly.”

            At last Data understood.  “Dae, are you embarrassed by this?”  She nodded.  There was no way she would say she was petrified of what her subconscious mind might pull if they shared a bed.  “Do you think you cannot trust me?”  He sounded hurt.

            “That isn’t it at all,” Dae replied.  _It’s_ me _I don’t think I can trust._   He might say he had no feelings, but he sure acted like it.  “I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t making the wrong assumptions.  Now I know I wasn’t, so do you want the bathroom first, or shall I take it?”  He blinked at the abrupt change of subject and told her to go ahead.

            She came out a while later, hiding, it seemed to him, behind her discarded clothing.  Data wondered why; her nightgown, though short, was far more modest than the bathing suit she had worn at a swim party on Memorial Day.  He supposed it had less to do with actual coverage than context and filed it away as another cultural oddity.  He turned at the bathroom door, surprising her in the act of packing her used clothing.  “Dae, what is appropriate for me to wear to bed?”

            “Oh.  Um, T-shirt and underwear?”

            “Ah.  That would make a suitable substitute for the male nightwear I have seen advertised,” he said.  By the time he left the bathroom, she was in bed, turned toward the bureau on the far side and rather close to the edge with her half of the sheet clutched under her chin.  He also folded his clothes into the suitcase, picked up a stack of magazines, turned out the light, and climbed in beside her.

            Dae welcomed darkness.  She thought facing the bureau would be smart, but she forgot about the mirror.  She tried not to watch his reflection—and failed.  He always wore long pants, at home or in public, since wearing shorts would increase the chance that some makeup would rub off.  But with his attire down to a plain white T-shirt and briefs, she got her first look at his legs.

            He had great legs.  _Really_ great, and now she had one more thing to try and bury from her subconscious.  She just knew she was going to fail.

            He turned his face toward her.  “Goodnight, Dae.”

            Not wanting to repeat any of their conversations on the treatment of friends, Dae bussed his cheek and said goodnight.

 

            They shared a night of sensual bliss, and she lay in his arms as he whispered sweet things to her.  She felt his breath on her ear and hugged him tighter as she tried to make out the words…

            “Dae?  I am sorry.  But you must wake up now, or we will not be able to complete our scheduled recreational activities in the time allotted.”

            Dae’s eyes sprang open.  She was nose to nose with Data, one arm tucked under his shoulder and the other across his chest.  He had an arm around her, not hugging her, she realized, just maintaining her position.  It had only been a dream.  She almost cried in disappointment.

            In between reading and working on his program, Data had watched Dae sleep.  He rarely had the chance to watch the process and found it remarkable.  He could pinpoint what stage of sleep she entered from her movements or lack thereof.  And he was quite interested when her somnolent peregrinations fetched her to his side, though the hollow in the mattress might have contributed.  It never occurred to him to do what a biological male might in the same situation, even if his programming offered several scenarios she might find pleasurable.

            He had not wished to wake her but they had a schedule to maintain, one she had helped write, and he believed she looked forward to the various outings they planned.  So he talked to her until her eyes opened.  “Ah.  You are awake.  Good morning.”  The android pressed a businesslike kiss to her lips.  “We have only thirty-four minutes until the dining establishment you specified will open for breakfast.  You may have the use of the bathroom.”

            Dae said a bemused good morning, grabbed the necessities and closed the door.  Fifteen minutes later, her peace of mind regained, she found him ready to go.  “Come on, Data, we don’t want to be late!”  She said it looked like a beautiful morning and suggested they walk.

 


	14. Chapter 14

14

 

 

            Dae relished their trip.  She felt more relaxed, and happier, than she had in a long time.  She usually vacationed alone, too, and realized she had missed company.

            And Data, who saw things with a mixture of clinical interest and childlike wonder, was the perfect companion, sharing his stored knowledge and seeking her “human” point of view.  From her he hoped to gain a better understanding of the emotional impact beauty had, and history, the interplay of mind and heart that he would never know.

            San Francisco was almost like home to him.  The Golden Gate Bridge still spanned the harbor mouth in his day, though weather control all but eliminated the here-and-now’s frequent fogs.  But to see the bridge rearing up from the clinging wisps of gray, to see the city emerge like mythical Avalon, made pictures of great aesthetic pleasure.

            They took plenty of photos, developing the film along the way and admiring each other’s artistic eye.  Each sketched, too, though Data filled his sketchpads at night in the dark while Dae worked on site, lest she forget the colors and details.

            Data came to admire her talent.  She may have chosen a career in theatrical makeup, but she was skilled in painting and sculpture as well, and he asked her one night over dinner why she did not pursue those avenues.

            “Oh, I don’t know,” she said as she looked at Lake Tahoe through the restaurant window.  Sunset sailed gold and pink reflections over the water.  “Only the makeup ever seems to match my ideas.  The rest, well, I’m never satisfied!  The best thing I’ve done is that scene over the mantel.”

            His eyes widened in admiration as he recalled the work, a simple view of a courtyard in summer, with the sun high in the sky spilling argent light across the tiled roof.  The focal point was a peeling blue door bound in iron fittings black with age, a blooming bougainvillea arching above it.  It suggested summer heat, and something wonderful in the dim coolness of the room behind the door.  “I did not know you were the artist.  Why did you never say?”

            She smiled.  “As someone once said to me, you never asked.”  He smiled back.  She went on to say she lacked the temperament to play the starving artist.  Her mother survived the Depression with one overwhelming idea, that you had to be able to take care of yourself because no one else would do it for you.  That was why Dae had also majored in accounting.  Her first job out of college, in fact, was working for a friend of her mom’s who ran a small accounting firm.

            Its most interesting client, in Dae’s opinion, was an independent special-effects company owned by Madoc Apstead, who was an award-winning, fourth-generation makeup man.  Dae found she spent more time talking makeup and effects with Doc than doing his books, and at last took some of her work to him.  He gave her an impromptu lesson, reviewed her work again the next week, and ended up offering her a job.  Through him, she honed her skills, gained the experience she needed to join the union, and found a busy and satisfying career.

            “Doc’s been my mentor, and a good friend.  He’s the one who convinced Mom I knew what I was doing when I quit the accounting firm.  If it wasn’t for him, I might still be keeping books and doing audits, wondering if I had any chance to do what I really wanted.”

            “Then I also owe a debt to Madoc,” said Data, “for had he not encouraged you to change professions, I would never have met you.”  She gave him another smile, even happier.  They finished their dinner and went back to their room.

            Dae had given up berating herself for what she did while asleep, because she apparently just slept.  She woke up snuggled against Data every morning, regardless of what time he had gone to bed.  He never mentioned being uncomfortable about it, so she never mentioned it, either.  In fact, she thought about asking if he cared to continue the practice when they got home, but didn’t.  As that idea grew, so did the thought that he would leave if she suggested it, and she liked him too much to take the risk because of her overactive imagination.

            So she held her tongue as they continued their travels.  And then they hit Vegas.

            Or rather, Vegas hit them.

 

* * *

 

            The staff looked a bit rumpled, but they were curious to know why the first officer called a meeting in the middle of the night.  “Well, Lieutenant,” said Picard, “let’s hear your new theory.”

D’Sora told them about her attempt to fight insomnia.  “Once I read the details of the Farpoint mission, I decided to search all the records, on the chance that Data had come up against something the _Enterprise_ had met before.”

            Since the date of commission, the records held several instances of abrupt disappearances, many related to an entity that always left a wide swath of disruption behind.  “In all our other meetings, we’ve ignored one likely candidate, sir.  Q.”

            “You could be right, Lieutenant,” Riker agreed.  “It does fit him.”  He went on to say Q’s time on the _Enterprise_ as a helpless human might have sparked an interest in Data, since the android was the only one willing to let him prove himself and had even saved Q’s life.

            Troi objected, “But it’s very unlike Q to pay a visit without calling attention to it.”

            “Deanna has a point,” said Crusher.  “He’s usually making as big a splash as possible, and it’s usually about you, Captain.”

            “True,” Picard admitted in a mordant voice, “but perhaps, after his last visit, he’s grown tired of me as entertainment.  Robin Hood and his merry men, indeed!”

            “Yes, Jean-Luc, you are such a stick-in-the-mud.”  The entity made a flamboyant entrance opposite the captain, wearing an admiral’s uniform and Napoleonic curls.  “And Riker’s no better.  Really, Riker,” Q chided him, “you turned out to be such a disappointment.”

            The first officer bowed his head in mock thanks.  “Disappointing you will always be one of the highlights of my life, Q.”

            Q leaned back in his chair and put his booted feet on the table.  “I should have expected that.  What other species is so proud of its inability to advance beyond the ordinary?  You ought to have taken the power I offered you, you’d have been much better off.”

            “That’s a matter of opinion,” retorted Crusher, “and I can’t see that yours is more valid than ours.  We happen to like him the way he is.”

            Picard reined in his frustration.  “Do you have some purpose for being here?”  If Q could be sarcastic, by damn, so could he.  “If not, go away, we’re busy.”

            “Jean-Luc, it pains me to hear you speak so, it truly does.  There I was, wending my way through the universe, when I heard my name.”  He smiled at them.  “I sought who called me and discovered it was you, my dearest friends!”  Q blew kisses to the table at large.  Crusher rolled her eyes.  “I simply had to drop in and see why you called.”  The entity perused the group.  “You seem to be short a couple of people.  And who’s she?” he added, jerking a thumb at D’Sora.

            “Lieutenant D’Sora is Acting Security Chief,” said Riker.  “Worf was injured.”

            “Oh, what a shame!” Q commiserated.  He turned to Crusher.  “Nothing minor, is it?  It _is_ going to be suitably fatal, I hope?”

            “As a matter of fact,” she drawled, “he’s recovering nicely and should be back on duty in a few weeks.”

            “Hmm.  Too bad, can’t win ’em all.”  Before anyone else could comment, he hurried on, “But where’s Data?”  Q ducked his head beneath the table.  “Data, Data, who’s got the Data?”  He straightened.  “Jean-Luc, you haven’t demoted him, have you?  You haven’t sentenced my professor of the humanities to roam endlessly through this bucket of bolts sweeping the hallways?  Oh, Jean-Luc,” Q beseeched him, hands clasped, “say it isn’t so!”

            “Enough, Q!” barked Picard.  “I’m tired of your games!  Have you taken Data or not?”

            The entity’s expression was offended.  He denied having taken the android anywhere.

            The empath gave him a penetrating stare.  “Then where have you sent him?”

            That got her a dark look.  “I keep forgetting that when I take this form, you can sometimes read me the way you do these…others.”  The implied word was “inferiors”.  He considered a moment, then shook his head.  “But the only alternative is a Ferengi, and as unpleasant as you are, Ferengi are so much worse.

            “But you’re right, Counselor, I’ve sent your precious android on a little…oh, let’s call it a fact-finding tour to analyze one of his hypotheses.  Actually I’m rather amazed that you figured out so quickly I was involved.  It only took what, ten days?”  Q’s smile was unpleasant.

            Picard demanded to know just what the android was doing and where he was doing it.  “That would be telling,” Q said.  “But if you’re feeling neglected, I’ll be happy to include you, my dearest friends.”  His saccharine tone made the necessity of insulin therapy a distinct possibility.  He leaned back and closed his eyes a moment, then snapped his fingers.  “I’ve got the perfect thing to salve your feelings of exclusion—I can test you, too!  And your test will be…to find Data!”

            How loyal were they to their lost comrade?  To what lengths would they go to recover him?  And were they smart enough to find him at all?  Q condescended to give a hint or two.  “He’s in what your insignificant intellects would call ‘known space.’”

            D’Sora leapt at that.  “You mean he’s someplace the ship has been?”

            “That microbrained Klingon is smarter than this,” muttered Q to the ceiling.  He turned back to the acting security chief and spoke with insulting patience.  “No, I didn’t say that.  I said ‘known space,’ and that is exactly what I meant.  There’s a difference.”  D’Sora flushed.

            Q continued, “I sent him where he wouldn’t be summarily destroyed.  The environment is relatively hospitable and he’ll survive its rigors.”  There was a significant pause.  “If he’s careful.”

            Crusher said, “Since he’s always careful, that means he’s safe!”

            Q stalked to her chair, which turned to meet him of its own volition.  The alien leaned down and put his hands on the chair’s arms, then brought his face very close to Crusher’s.  The room reeked of menace.

            “Safe?” he whispered.  “Who said anything about safe?  On the contrary, Doctor, your friend Data is in deadly peril nearly ever moment.  He faces hazards you cannot possibly envision.

            “I said he would not be summarily destroyed.  But his destruction _is_ possible.  In fact, it’s a certainty if anything goes wrong.  And even for an android, there are worse things than death.”

            The alien backed away.  “You really should start looking, Jean-Luc.  Data may not have much time.  Oh, and do pay attention.  There may be clues along the way.  It would be a shame if you missed one through carelessness or inattention.  Or sheer stupidity.

             “I wish you luck, _mon capitaine_ ,” Q taunted.  “You’ll need it.”  His departure sent the meeting into a free-for-all.  The captain called them back to order five minutes later.

            D’Sora asked if her having annoyed Q meant more trouble for Data.

            Troi said, “I don’t think so.  Q may be unpredictable, but he usually plays by some kind of rules.”  Her sarcasm was faint but unmistakable.  “Still, he seemed certain Data is already in danger.  I have a feeling he won’t increase that danger on our account.”

            “Very well,” said Picard.  “We now have clues to Data’s whereabouts, though I dare say they sound of dubious help.  He’s somewhere in known space, where he won’t be destroyed out of hand and can survive the hardships of the planet.”

            The problem was, known space included the Romulan Empire, the Cardassian Union, the Delta-Quadrant terminus of the Barzan wormhole and, thanks to the Traveler, several nearby galaxies.  Places, in short, the _Enterprise_ had no feasible way to reach.

“But we must start with what we have,” Picard continued, a gleam in his eyes at Q’s challenge.  “Lieutenant D’Sora, contact every starbase and planet we’ve visited in the last year for any reports of Commander Data.”  He paused, chilled.  “Including the sighting of anyone matching his description, in case he’s been deprived of his memory.”

            She would query Starfleet as well, for any suspicious news from Cardassian or Ferengi space.  “And see if any word has come from Ambassador Spock,” Picard added.  “If Data is on Romulus, Spock’s underground might know and be able to help us retrieve him.”

            The captain ordered La Forge to do whatever he could to further increase the sensitivity of the ship’s sensors.  He praised the work La Forge had already done, but Picard wanted to be able to pick Data out of a crowd of a million similar androids at maximum range.

            Turning to Riker, he said, “Will, once we leave here, every system we pass is to be scanned as thoroughly as possible for Data or his comm signal.  If you can’t get a clear reading, or get one that warrants a closer look, launch additional probes and we’ll come back as our schedule permits.  And check the passive sweeps performed since his disappearance.  If there’s even a hint of an anomalous reading, I want it verified.”

            Troi suggested Data might have been moved to a planet more frequented in the past than the present, so she would explore the earliest Federation records.  Crusher volunteered to analyze more recent contact data and coordinate with Troi.

            The officers also had to prepare for direct investigation.  If any clues showed up on a planet protected by the Prime Directive, Troi would be surgically altered to infiltrate and gather information.  Others would be sent as needed, but Troi’s empathic skills might swing the balance.

            As Picard dismissed them, they had similar thoughts: Data was a very small needle in a haystack covering half the galaxy, and then some.

 

* * *

 

            Data and Dae spent an extra day in Yosemite because the sights fascinated the android so—the park had changed much by his day, due to normal geology and the aftereffects of World War III.  He notified their motel in Las Vegas, but it was being renovated and ran out of rooms before they arrived.  They ended up off the Strip in a room hardly big enough to swing a cat in, even supposing one could talk a feline into the experiment, as the android put it.  Its only virtue for Dae was its reciprocal agreement with one of the larger hotels for the use of its pool and spa.

            When Dae suggested visiting Las Vegas, Data read every book on casino games the library had to offer.  He thought a bit of gambling could increase his financial base and let him speed up his research.  He concentrated on card games; the happenings on Theta VIII showed he had an unfair advantage in craps, and roulette left nothing to a player’s skill.  Poker and blackjack were games he believed he could win without cheating, even with his android advantages.

            The books also outlined behavioral characteristics the casinos saw as signs of cheating, so he made a mental note to avoid those behaviors and keep on the casinos’ “good side.”  His studies would do no good if he was branded as dishonest and not allowed to play.

            At the first casino, he observed the games and found that his experiences in the Hotel Royale, while based in bad fiction, were strangely accurate.  He saw many players gripped by the so-called gambling fever, making erratic wagers on hands they could not possibly win.  Others were skilled players who knew how to recognize and take advantage of periodic streaks.  These phenomena, which Data had thought imaginary, he now saw as infrequent but real.

            He even watched Dae at blackjack, her favorite game.  She turned out to be an intelligent player, not given to trusting luck, and her few unwise bets did not affect her expanding bankroll.  Data noted with approval that she only drank soft drinks.  One universal caution in the books was, never drink when gambling.  It was the surest way to lose both one’s judgment and one’s money.

There was a man at her table who, by his behavior, had never read those books.  He wobbled in his seat from intoxication but still had a large pile of chips.

            Data left to find a table.  A couple of hours later and thousands of dollars ahead, he went back to Dae’s.  When a seat opened up, he bought in and played a while, winning several hands.  Dae gathered her chips a few deals later and stood up.  “Well, I’ve had enough for the moment.  Here, sugar,” she said, and put one arm around Data while plunking the chips in front of him.  “Break the bank for me.  I’m going for a swim.”  She kissed his cheek and left.

            “Lucky s.o.b.,” muttered the man to Data’s right, the one who was drunk.

            “I beg your pardon?”

            The man cleared his throat.  “I said you’re a lucky devil, to have a babe like that.”  Rather that explain their platonic relationship, Data decided a simple thank-you was his safest answer.  “Yeah, a real looker.  I used to get ’em like that, y’know.  Couldn’t keep their hands off me.  I could’ve had her,” jerking his head in the direction Dae went, “not too long ago.”

            Data studied him.  He was older than Picard, and La Forge’s height, but there all resemblance ended.  Greasy gray hair topped an unshaven face.  Sloppy, overweight, his nose a network of broken capillaries, with protuberant bloodshot eyes and breath that could fell a Klingon, Data doubted any of his female friends would see anything attractive in the man.

            He won his next bet, after the man to his right hit on seventeen and went bust.  “Yeah, they couldn’t get enough.  I showed ’em a _real_ good time.”  He nudged Data and favored him with a lewd wink.  “Bet I could teach your girlfriend a thing or three.”

            The android won his next four bets.  The drunk, however, now seemed more interested in getting personal details about Dae than in his cards, and his comments became more and more unpleasant.  Data knew none of his friends would ever discuss another so in public, and even Dae’s friends, if more explicit “ _en famille_ ” than he was used to, were at least publicly discreet.

            At last the man went well beyond the bounds of decency and offered Data the rest of his shrunken pile of chips for fifteen minutes of Dae’s time, saying, “I’ll make sure she enjoys it.  You can stay and make sure she does, too.”  He leered.

            It had gone far enough and Data, determined to silence the boor, selected the most fitting responses from his files.  In his most reasonable voice, he said, “You are mistaken if you believe I would allow you within half a kilometer of her, whatever inducements you offer.  I find your suggestions insulting in the extreme.  If you persist, I will be forced to cause you to regret it.”

            “Oh, yeah?” came the drunk’s clever rejoinder.  “Whas th’ matter, not man enough to take a li’l comp’tishun?”  He laughed, a plummy, overfed and well-oiled laugh, and elbowed Data hard.  The dealer signaled the pit boss to call security.

            The drunk elbowed Data again.  The android caught his wrist and squeezed gently.  The man gasped.  “You have compounded your initial error.  She is free to make her own choices, of course, but I feel confident she would never choose you.”  The man made a comment too offensive to tolerate and Data fired his volley of last resort.  “And if you think to challenge my assertion in person, you approach my wife at your own risk.”  He had noticed that, liberation or no, a female’s marital status carried more weight than most people cared to admit.

            It worked.  The drunk struggled against Data’s grip and blustered, “Well, why di’n’t you say sumthin’?  I’d’a never said it if I knew she was your wife, dammit.  She wasn’ wearin’ a ring, how th’ hell was I s’posed to know?”

            Thinking quickly, Data said, “She agreed to forgo a ring temporarily.  We are saving for a house.”  The nationwide housing crunch made it a believable excuse.

            He released the drunk, who shook his numb hand and, mumbling something about damn touchy newlyweds, swept his chips into an untidy pile and staggered to another table.

 

            In a corner of the casino, a brown-haired man watched the proceedings.

 

            Data tipped the dealer, changed his chips for larger denominations, and cashed out of the casino with twenty-two thousand dollars more than he had gone in with.

            He found Dae stretched out beside the hotel pool, sunning herself and reading.  The book’s cover showed a buxom young woman in a frothy antique gown being accosted by a shirtless man in tight pants.  Dae saw his glance and said, “It’s a bodice-ripper.  So, how’d it go?”

            He told her of his success and she whistled.  “Wonderful!  Say, what happened to the barfly at the end of the table?”

            “He lost his focus and most of his chips,” Data replied.  He debated telling her the rest, but his hesitation told her there was more.

            “What is it, Data?”

            “He made offensive remarks about you.  I was able to silence him only by saying you are…”  He paused a moment.  “My wife.”

            Dae blinked and moved her sunglasses farther down on her nose, staring at him over the rims with a raised eyebrow.  He looked flustered.  “I am sorry, Dae, but he appeared disinclined to cease until I suggested you were…I believe the correct word, in the vernacular, is ‘taken.’  He assumed we are newlyweds.”  She opened her mouth, then closed it.  Data went on, “Perhaps it would be advisable to avoid that casino for the duration of our visit, in case he goes there often.”

            She grinned.  “Data, you defended my honor!  Come here.”  He leaned forward to accept her kiss, which was more impassioned than normal.  She justified it by saying a bride was entitled to thank her husband, wasn’t she?  He agreed with her logic and accepted another proof of her thanks.  In the back of her mind she thought, _I just hope I remember we’re pretending._

 

            They took their day trips, and on one Data bought a sand painting depicting the Milky Way, but mostly they gambled.  Dae allotted herself two hundred dollars a day and played until it was gone or she got bored, whichever came first.  By noon on their fifth day, she had won sixty-six hundred dollars.

            Data won almost one hundred seven thousand dollars in the same period, though he played with care and made bad wagers now and then to look like an average gambler.  He even hoped to double his winnings before they left town the next day.

            They spent the morning at the tables downtown, ate lunch at one of the many buffets, then returned to the Strip and went their separate ways.

            Data kept an eye open for the obnoxious drunk, but never saw him.  He did notice one brown-haired man who always nodded to him when they ended up in the same casino.  It was no one Data knew, though the android recalled seeing him nearby when the drunk made his scene.

            A couple of hours later, at the casino in the hotel where she sunbathed, Dae watched as Data won three thousand on one deal.  That made one hundred ninety-five thousand in profits for five days.  She gave him a quick kiss and prepared to leave but he said, “Please, do not go.”  Looking past her, he saw the man he had hoped to avoid, weaving toward them with a most purposeful glint in his bulging eyes.  A fistful of bills fluttered in the breeze of his passage.

            He reached the table and took the last empty seat, which was beside Data.  The man leered at Dae, who pointedly moved to Data’s other side.

            In the security control room, the brown-haired man pointed to one of the screens and said, “Bailey, you’d better keep an eye on this table.”

            Bailey, the casino manager, hurried to the screen.  “What’s up, Max?”  Max was not employed by any establishment in Las Vegas, but he had ties to most of the hotels through his work.  When Max said to watch someone, you were wise to take the suggestion.

            “That guy.  The fat one with the plaid coat beside the brown-haired young man at the second high-stakes blackjack table.”

            Bailey recognized him.  “That’s Marv Jensen.”  A high roller, the man tended to drunk-and-disorderly, boisterous but not usually offensive.

            “Not this time,” Max foretold.  “He made himself offensive a few days ago, acting as if the young one’s wife, there, was for hire.”  Max shook his head.  “The young one put him in a neat wrist hold, didn’t hurt him, but Fats wasn’t happy.  It looks like he’s up to something.”  Bailey alerted the pit boss and a couple of security guards.

            Jensen heaped his chips on the felt in front of him.  “Hey, pal,” he said to Data with a stinging slap on the shoulder, “long time no see!  Luck holding out?”  He admired Data’s stacks of chips and faced Dae in less wholesome admiration.  “Hiya, honey!  Did he tell ya my offer?”

            “He did,” she replied.  She slid an arm around Data’s shoulder, and his went around her waist, a protective gesture.  Dae looked Jensen in the eye and said in a flat voice, “Frankly, he was far too complimentary.  If you were the last man on earth, you pig, I’d kill myself before I’d let you touch me.  If I couldn’t kill you first.”  Data had never heard that jagged tone in her voice and began to admire her acting ability, except her violent trembling made him wonder if she was acting after all.

            The drunk glared at her.  “That so?  We’ll see how you sing after I take all your old man’s money.  Get away from the table, honey, you bother me.  But not too far away.”  He licked his lips, a sight that made Dae ill and made Data think she should return to their room.  But if she left, the drunk would be free to follow her, so he gave her a thousand in chips and told her to have fun.

            Dae touched his cheek.  “In a minute.”  Their lips touched and he guessed she wanted to get Jensen so angry, he would make a scene and security could take him away.  Keeping one hand on his chips, Data recalled his lessons and kissed Dae in a way he hoped was proper for newlyweds.  When they parted, she smiled in anticipation.  “Don’t be too long, sugar.”  Data was quite surprised, and his little smile hinted at a pleasure he did not, could not, feel.

            Their playacting infuriated Jensen.  Half an hour after he sat down, he lost his last chip.  He called over the pit boss and said, “I’ve got a five hun’erd grand line here.  Get me a hun’erd.”  The pit boss refused.  “ _No_?” he roared.  “I’m good for it!  Get it, now, or I’ll have your job!”

            The manager, watching the situation deteriorate from the control room, hustled to the casino floor and moved between the drunk and the pit boss.  “Now, Mr. Jensen, let’s not be hasty.  You’re a valued patron”—especially since he could drop a hundred grand in twenty minutes—“and of course you’ll get your line.  But you’ll have to go sign—”

            “I’m not goin’ noplace,” Jensen retorted.  He managed to understand that if he left the casino floor, the girl could get away.  “I’ll sign _here.”_   He thumped the table for emphasis.  His fleshy mouth set in a stubborn line, he stared around the floor until he saw Dae at a roulette table.  “Only way I’m goin’ anyplace,” he mumbled, “is with her.”  Dae seemed to feel his eyes and shuddered.

            “No, sir, you will not.”  The android’s conviction ought to have quelled Jensen, but that one’s brain was pickled in gin, and what he was using to think with was ill equipped for the task.

            The manager glanced at the guards, who moved closer.  “I must insist, Mr. Jensen.  House policy requires you to go to the cage to access your credit line.”  His tone soothed without patronizing and Jensen began to respond.

            “Yeah, okay.”  He pushed up from the table, then faked a stumble to sneak a handful of the android’s chips.  Data saw through the ploy and twisted the hand away.  The man stared at his empty hand in confusion and let the manager and guards walk him off.  Data returned his attention to his chips.  Max took the vacant seat and bought in.

            “You handled him well.  Both times,” Max said.

            “Thank you,” Data replied.  His attention was not on the table, and he glanced from Dae to Jensen, measuring to the last millimeter the distance separating them.  He won his next bet, and the next, then lost one.  He heard a scuffle and turned, fast.  Max followed his eyes.

            Jensen waited until he was even with the roulette table and broke away from the guards.  Dae had cashed out and stood in a clear spot.  Jensen tackled her.  Someone screamed.

            Not Dae.  She fought, silently, while Jensen talked a running line of filth that made her blanch.  Data left the table, his chips forgotten as he hurried to Dae’s aid, frustrated by the need to move as slowly as a human.  Max watched both the fight and the chips.

            Jensen outweighed Dae by a hundred pounds, but she was smarter.  She managed to knee him in the groin, then smacked him hard across the windpipe.  He rolled off, wheezing, and had the bad luck to land at Data’s feet.  The android pulled him up and clutched the collar of his shirt into a knot at his Adam’s apple.  He tried to knock away the hand cutting off his breath, but Data grabbed one flailing arm at the wrist, tightening his grip until the drunk whimpered.

            The guards took Jensen in an arm lock and dragged him away.  Data kneeled beside Dae and cradled her with profuse apologies for his slowness.  She was shuddering.  “It is all right, Dae,” he whispered.  “He is gone.  Are you all right?”  She buried her head in his shoulder.

            “Come…my dear,” he said, mindful of their roles.  “I will take you back to our room.”

            He helped her up and tried to lead her away, but she said, “What about your winnings?”

            “They are less important than your safety,” he replied, indifferent to the crowd’s murmur.

            “But it’s our house,” she reminded him with a shaken smile and a conspiratorial wink.  He at last agreed and they went back to the table, where they found his chips under Max’s watchful eye.  The excitement over, the crowd dispersed to their games.

            “Are you all right, ma’am?” the stranger asked.  “Your chips are all there, Mr.—?”

            “Oliver.  Dana Oliver.”  He shook the man’s hand after verifying his chips were, in fact, all there.  “This is Dae.  She claims to be fine.”  His expression made the other man smile.  “Thank you for guarding my chips.  As my wife says, they represent an investment in our first home.”

            “You might get farther toward that goal if you played something with a little higher stakes, Mr. Oliver.  Have you considered baccarat?”

            “Blackjack and poker have seemed sufficient to this point.”

            “Let’s see if we can change your mind.  Bailey,” Max called to the manager.  “Open a baccarat table.  After you, Mr. Oliver.  Mrs. Oliver?”

            Data tilted his head, curious.  “You do not work for the casino?”

            “No,” agreed Max.  “I’m independent.”  They walked to an area behind a slim rail where the walls were draped in flowing red.  The carpet was cushier than elsewhere in the casino, the chairs more comfortable.  He gestured for Data to sit down, then sat at the other end of the table.

            Dae joined Data as a blonde woman carrying eight new decks of cards and a large card shoe arrived.  Both men inspected the cards and the croupier shuffled them, offered them for the cut and the burn.  When they drew for the position of the shoe, the card favored Max.

            Bailey leaned over and whispered to Max, who nodded.  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Oliver, but Bailey’s just reminded me.  I’m afraid if you aren’t playing, you must leave the table.”

            She nodded.  “That’s okay.  I’m still a little shaky, anyway.  I’ll play the slots a while.  If that horrible man is gone?” she asked Bailey.

            “Don’t worry, Mrs. Oliver,” the manager smiled.  “Mr. Jensen has been returned to his room.  Someone is staying with him, he’s feeling unwell.”  Which translated to, the souse might as well be in the local cop shop until he sobers up.  “Will you wish to press charges?”

            “Good,” said Dae, “and as to charges…well, you might drop a hint that you’re trying to talk me out of it.”  Her smile held a trace of mischief.  “Good luck, sugar,” she told Data with another quick kiss.

            The mystery and ceremony surrounding baccarat masked its simplicity.  Only two hands of two cards were dealt, one for the bank—the one who held the shoe—and one for the player, which included anyone else at the table.  The idea was to get either eight or nine, with cards valued at ten being ignored.  Everyone bet on either the player hand or the bank hand; the banker was free to bet the player hand, and vice versa.  The rules governed if the bank hand took a card or stood pat.  It was that simple.  But baccarat had some of the best odds of any casino game.

            Data, of course, knew every technical detail about the game from his reading.  He had seen it played during their stay, and found it interesting.  He bet bank, so did Max.  The cards were dealt face down from the shoe, then flipped face-up with a paddle.  Bank won.

            Baccarat always fascinated people, and when they recognized the man whose wife had been manhandled by “that lousy drunk,” many stopped to watch.  The shoe passed from Max to Data and back again.  Data’s pile of chips tripled in size, with most in higher denominations than his original stake.  Max’s luck was not quite as good, but his own stake had been far larger.

            They began the second shoe.  Data continued to make intelligent wagers.  Max hit several streaks but lost over time.  Toward the end of the shoe, the android won six bets in a row on player.  Having let his winnings ride, he calculated he had just over a million on the table.

            The dealer announced that the next hand would be the last of that shoe.  Data weighed his options.  Should he make a token bet, or risk losing it all?  What he had now would more than cover his equipment needs, but the additional funds would let him plan for the contingency of getting home the hard way, by somehow surviving through four more centuries.  He looked for Dae and saw her near the rail with the rest of the crowd.  He raised an eyebrow to ask her opinion.

            She only knew he needed lots of computer equipment.  She bit her lip, crossed her fingers and mouthed, “Let it ride.”

            He nodded once and announced his decision.  The crowd gasped.  Max controlled the shoe but had been betting player, and winning along with Data, if not as much.  He now spared a glance for Dae, faced Data, and pushed his remaining half-million in chips to the line—on bank.  There would be one winner and one loser, Max’s bet saw to that, and the crowd gasped again.

            The croupier flipped over player’s hand.  “Player has four,” she announced.  It was weak but not worthless.  Bank’s hand was flipped over.  The crowd held its collective breath.

            “Four.”  The crowd sighed.  “Does player draw?”  Data nodded once, and Max slid a card to him.  The croupier turned it over.  “Five.  Player has nine.  The bank draws.”  Max slipped out another card.  Over came the paddle.  Dae’s eyes clenched shut.  The card was flipped.

            “Eight,” the croupier called.  “Bank has two.  Player wins.”  The crowd burst into applause.  Dae ran to Data, threw her arms around his neck and peppered him with kisses.

            “You did it, you did it!” she kept saying.  “I’m so proud of you!  What a house we can buy!”  That was for the crowd.  In his ear she whispered, “And we can fill it to the rafters with computers!  Data, I’m so happy for you!”  He returned her affectionate enthusiasms and thought he had been almost as entranced as the crowd over those last cards.

            For a man who had lost well over a million dollars, Max was unconcerned.  When Dae got herself under control he said, “Someone who can stay as cool as you do, Mr. Oliver, must have quite a background.  I’d like to get to know you better.”  He took a business card from his wallet, scribbled something on it, and handed it to Data.  “My wife and I are having a party this evening.  Black tie.  Please join us?  Just show this card at the penthouse elevator.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry, but we didn’t bring black tie,” Dae said, disappointed.

            Max threw a pointed look at Data’s winnings.  “I don’t think that should be a problem, Mrs. Oliver.  But if you’d like to keep everything for your house…”  He gestured to Bailey.  “Get my tailor and send him to the honeymoon suite—”

            “We are not guests at this hotel, sir,” the android apologized.

            Max smiled.  “Bailey?”  Bailey smiled, too, snapped his fingers for a waitress to get the concierge.  “As I said, send my tailor to the honeymoon suite to fit Mr. Oliver for a tuxedo.  Make appointments for Mrs. Oliver with the couturier and the beauty shop, in that order.  So your hairstyle and makeup can be suited to your gown,” he explained with another quiet smile.  “My wife has drilled into me for thirty years that it’s the only way.  We’ll expect you at eight.”  He waved off their protests, shook hands with them and walked away, Bailey at his heels.

            “Will you come this way, please?” asked the concierge.  Data arranged to have his winnings deposited to his account, took Dae’s hand and followed the concierge.

            She led them to the elevators.  Pointing to one set off by itself with a dark-suited man standing beside it, she said, “That’s the express to Mr. Sinclair’s penthouse.”  Another elevator took them to their floor.  The concierge ran a card key through a reader on the wall beside an ornate door, handed Data the card and turned the knob.

            The suite was the size of a small house, with magnificent views of both city and desert.  The concierge closed the drapes against the afternoon sun and led them to the bath, a sybarite’s dream.  A pink whirlpool tub for two rested in a raised base of gold-veined marble.  There were gold fixtures, plush towels big as twin sheets and bathrobes lavish enough to get lost in.  A double shower stood beyond the tub.  Bottles of bath salts and oils lined the ledge around the tub, and perfumes and men’s colognes stood at prolific attention on the counter between the double sinks.

            The bedroom made Dae think she had died and gone to heaven.  The king-sized four-poster was hung with gauzy gold curtains, and the comforter was creamy brocade.  The rugs were so soft she itched to take off her shoes.  A mural of Botticelli’s _Venus_ adorned the wall behind the bed.  The concierge opened a closet as big as Dae’s office and offered to pick up their luggage.

            “Thank you, but no,” Data replied, since Dae was still gaping at the bedroom.  “What time are our appointments, please?”

            The tailor was scheduled for four-thirty, half an hour hence, and Dae was due at the couturier in twenty minutes.  The concierge told them to call for anything they needed and closed the door behind her.

            “I will go to our motel and get our luggage, Dae.”

            “I’ll come with you, it’s just through the garden, after all.  What a wild coincidence, that we end up in the honeymoon suite of the hotel where I was thrilled just to use the pool!  I don’t believe our luck.  Who’s Mr. Sinclair, anyway?”

            Dae didn’t want to fuss with the car, so they arranged to leave it in the motel’s garage and paid their bill.  Data took out the card when they reached their old room.  It was plain white, their names written on one side.  The other said, “Maxwell Sinclair, ClairTech Enterprises.”

            Her jaw dropped.  “ _Maxwell_ Sinclair?  Oh, my God.”

            Maxwell Sinclair owned not just ClairTech, but a dozen other companies dealing in computer hardware and software, high-tech security, and pure research.  His personal fortune was estimated at twenty-seven billion dollars.  “No wonder he could lose a million and not bat an eye,” she said.  “That’s peanuts for him.  And he thinks you’re interesting.”

            She felt cold and put a hand on Data’s arm.  “I remember reading his next area of research is robotics,” she said in a hush.  “If he got his hands on you….”  The thought made her sick.

            “He cannot know,” he whispered in her ear.  “And even if he did, few of my components could be fabricated from materials available today.  However, I will be cautious, if it will make you feel better.  We must hurry, though, or I will not have time to apply enough makeup to deceive the tailor.  I do not think we should be late.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

15

 

 

            Only a few starbases and planets had replied to D’Sora’s inquiries as yet, all in the negative.  Starfleet was checking the latest reports from Romulus and Cardassia Prime, and had operatives on the lookout in Ferengi territory.

            La Forge’s newest sensor upgrade was in progress.  The sensitivity had been enhanced by another factor of three and his teams were working toward a factor of five.

            The first officer’s review of the standard sensor sweeps showed no suspicious readings.  The probes had found nothing.

            Crusher and Troi met on the bridge.  “What have you found, Deanna?”

            Along with the hundred fifty-odd Federation members, contact extended to a multitude of other species, their names a litany of the little-known reaches of the galaxy.  “And those,” sighed the counselor, “are the ones with whom we’ve had fairly regular contact at some point in time.  The ones protected by the Prime Directive…there are thousands.”

            Pointing to her own display, Crusher said, “Even species from our own missions may not respond, and might be impossible to infiltrate.”  All in all, they had several thousand species to consider, and the number with good relations to the Federation was miniscule in comparison.

            The doctor began sorting the data by distance from Data’s vanishing point, humanoid population, habitability, technology, subspace communication capability, and Prime Directive status, hoping to narrow down the possibilities.  Some planets would be inhospitable even to his durable construction, and on others the culture might be so primitive or so alien that Data could never hope to blend in.

            Non-humanoid species might be ruled out, as might obvious enemies of the Federation, but there was no guarantee of that, since summary destruction of a Starfleet officer might be delayed for study or interrogation.  They traded looks.  Some things just did not bear thinking about.  Troi went back to Brethal with D’Sora.  Crusher, with a sigh, returned to sickbay.

 

            “All right, Worf,” the doctor said.  “Stand up.”  It was his first try without the motor-assist bands.  He sat flanked by two med techs far enough away to suit his dignity but close enough to help him.  Crusher felt he was still pushing himself, but he had been so cooperative since Troi’s visualization therapy, she felt she owed him the chance to gauge his own progress.

            Worf, recalling the vision Troi helped him interpret, pushed on the arms of his chair.

            The muscles in his powerful arms corded.  He raised his body.  Two centimeters.  His breath echoed in sickbay.  Six centimeters, then ten.  Sweat filmed his face.  He tightened his thigh and calf muscles, anticipating pain but feeling none.  He continued to rise, then his body trembled and he started to sink back into the chair.  Crusher moved forward but he uttered a faint growl.

            The Klingon marshaled his strength and raised his body again.  He was almost standing, only the tips of his fingers on the chair.  He stood, stooped like an old man, and worked to straighten.  His muscles quivered under the strain.

            At last Worf stood as a warrior ought, tall and proud.  He took a swaying step but did not fall, so he took another.  He reached the far side of the room, turned around and leaned against the bulkhead.  “If you can’t make,” Crusher begged, “tell me!  I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

            He nodded, saving his breath, and began the long walk back to his chair.  He made it halfway, stopped, and said, “Doctor, I require assistance.”  It was quite an admission, and it hurt his pride, but better a bruised ego than a damaged body.

            She put an arm around him before the techs got to his chair.  “Good, Worf, very good.  A little more in a few hours, then a little more after that, and you’ll be back at Tactical in no time.”

            “And you,” he retorted with a sly smile, “will be eating gagh.”

            She grinned back.  “I don’t think I’ll repeat that to Deanna just now.  She has other things on her mind.”

 

            Troi sat at the campsite talking to Myr and D’Sora.  La Forge and Sthal were checking the aquaforming equipment.  The other Malèdri had been gathering dirnal, and the gems’ quality was far above average.  “A happy tresh is a productive tresh, it would seem,” Troi said to Myr.

            “A good assumption, Deanna,” replied the Malèd.  “Yes, this is a very hospitable world.  I would not mind settling here myself, but I don’t know whether we will be assigned to the colony.”  Such details would have to wait until the aquaforming project showed clear positive results.

            “How much more positive could they be?” D’Sora asked.  But she knew they were waiting for something—that other mind, which would undoubtedly have a say in the matter.

            D’Sora left them to check sensor readings and the communications about Data.  The uniformly negative results left her discouraged.  She was trying to make sense of the clues Q mentioned when Riker beamed down.  La Forge showed up moments later with Sthal.  Riker paid his respects to the Malèdri, took Troi’s report, and joined D’Sora.

            “Talking to yourself might be grounds for psychological evaluation, Lieutenant.”  He grinned and straddled a chair across from her.

            She’d been uncomfortable around Riker since finding out Data had asked him for romantic advice about her.  She knew he was joking but couldn’t muster an amusing reply.  “I’m just frustrated, Commander.”

            His eyebrows shot up.  “True confessions?  Shall I have a word with Geordi for you?”

            “No, _sir_ ,” she said.  She sat at attention and glared at the screen instead of at him.  “I meant about Q, and the lack of news about Data, nothing else.  Permission to be excused, sir.”

            She stood but he told her to sit.  She did, still not meeting his eyes.  “It was a bad joke,” he said, “and I’m sorry.  What I was hoping to do was put you a little more at ease with me.”

            D’Sora looked straight past him and he sighed.  “Lieutenant D’Sora…Jenna.”  His use of her first name snapped her head around.  “Jenna, I tease people I like.  I may go a little overboard, but it’s all in fun.”  Her hands relaxed.  “Whatever you’ve heard, I don’t come between people who are involved with each other.  And Geordi is one of my best friends, so it goes double for him.  I’m sorry, and I’ll try not to embarrass you again.”  His smile came back.  “Am I forgiven?”

            Suddenly understanding just why the first officer was considered so charming, she couldn’t help but laugh.  “I’ll try to be less sensitive in the future.”

            “That’s all right.  Now, before I was such a cad—” and Riker winked at her.  Her lips twitched.  “That’s better.  Now, what were you mumbling about?”  She asked if he knew what kind of clues to expect.  “Oh, obscure ones, I’m sure,” he said with a theatrical sigh.  “We need a map, with ‘X Marks the Spot’ in big red letters!”  She looked puzzled.  “Check the linguistics banks, it’ll be in Data’s treatise on idiomatic English.  Let’s see how the aquaforming’s going.”

 

* * *

 

            At seven-twenty, Data opened the garment bag holding his tuxedo.  The tailor, a regal French émigré, had spent an hour fitting him and giving him several choices for accoutrements:  on the shirt, sir, ruffles or pleats?  (Pleats)  A cummerbund or vest? (A vest, subtly embroidered in black, dark red and gold)  For the bow tie, sir, pre-tied—offered with a sniff and a raised brow—or a real tie? (Real, matching the vest)  And the studs and cufflinks, sir, onyx or mother-of-pearl, perhaps ruby?  (Mother-of-pearl, thank you; although Max Sinclair was footing the bill, as Dae might put it, Data’s frugality was now a habit.)  The tailor’s assistant had just delivered everything, including silk dress socks and a pair of black dress shoes.

            The tailor had also agreed to ask the hotel jeweler to talk to the couturier and choose appropriate ornaments for Dae’s clothing.  He arrived with the assistant.  Data made his choices, received compliments on his taste from the jeweler, and was left alone to prepare for the evening.

            Data decided to re-do his makeup, in the interest of good camouflage, and to apply extra fixative.  He analyzed the men’s colognes on the counter and picked one out of simple curiosity, wondering if his lack of skin oils would permit full development of the scent.  He was checking the effect, intrigued at its nuances as it interacted with his body’s warmth, when a discreet knock sounded at the door.  Data checked his disguise and pulled on a robe.

            A waiter entered.  He carried a silver ice bucket and tray, a beribboned bottle, and two crystal flutes.  He nodded to Data and, without a word, put the tray on a table beside the sofa, produced with a flourish a doily to protect the tray, set the bucket on the doily and buried the bottle in the ice.  He arranged the flutes beside the bucket, stepped back to admire the display, and nodded in brisk satisfaction.

            “I am sorry,” Data began, “but I did not order—”

            “Compliments of the management for the happy couple, sir, with congratulations on your marriage and best wishes for your future happiness.  Would you like me to pour, sir?”

            Data started to say no, then heard a rat-a-tat-tat on the door.  “Yes, please.  I believe that would be my wife.”  The waiter rushed to get the door, bowed Dae in, then returned to the bottle.

            Even in the green wrapper from the salon, she looked magnificent.  Her hair was a riot of curls, some of them cascading over one shoulder, and narrow gold ribbon and strings of seed pearls twined throughout.  Her eyelids were shadowed in some color that managed to look both pale and smoky, her eyebrows and lashes slightly darkened.  The blush on her cheeks was only a little enhanced, while her lips and nails were tinted a sheer rosy-peach.

            She chuckled when the champagne cork popped.  “How absolutely perfect!” she said as she hung a long garment bag next to Data’s and set a shoe box on the floor beside his.  They accepted the glasses from the waiter, who left without so much as hinting for a tip.

            They touched the rims of the glasses together and sipped.  “Oh, that’s lovely,” Dae said.

            “Compliments of the management for the happy couple,” the android repeated in the waiter’s voice, which sent Dae’s brows up in surprise.  She took another sip of the wonderful vintage, then asked how much time they had.  “Twenty-seven minutes.”

            “I’d better hurry,” she gasped, and suited action to words by charging to the bathroom.  “Do you still need in here?”  He told her he was finished and she shut the door to run a tub.

            Data dressed while she bathed, listening to her cheerful chatter about her afternoon.  The couturier’s had been quite an experience, she said, though all the poking and pinning and nipping and tucking left her so unsure of herself, she doubted the end would justify the means.  He assured her his experience with the tailor was similar, excluding the emotional discomfort.

            The salon was just the opposite, restful and pampering.  The manager got the details of her gown from the couturier, told Dae to leave everything to her, whisked her into the wrapper, deposited a glass of wine in her hand, and shoved her head into a shampoo sink.

            Two hours and two glasses of wine later, Dae was coiffed, manicured, pedicured—“My toes, if you hadn’t noticed, are a work of art!” she laughed—and made up.  She picked up her dress, shoes, and a small evening bag on the way back to the suite.

            “Will you hand me my things, please?” she asked ten minutes later, and emerged in ten more minutes, proud and shy at once, to ask what he thought.

            “I think you look like a statue brought to life,” said Data.  Her gown, a one-shouldered style familiar to students of classic Terran sculpture, was of layers of ivory silk bordered in woven gold ribbon.  More fabric fell from her shoulder, enough to drift behind or be used as a stole, and the midriff was cross-tied with gold cords.  Her gold leather shoes were styled like sandals, showing off her pedicure, and the high heels brought her to within half an inch of his height.

            “Thank you, sir.  You’re pretty gorgeous yourself.”  She thought him one of those rare men who knew exactly how to wear a tux and gave him a hug.  “You even smell gorgeous,” she said of the subtle sandalwood aroma.  Her perfume, redolent of jasmine and myrrh, complemented his.  “Do we have time for another glass of champagne?  I wanted to give you something.”

            “I have a gift for you as well.  What a remarkable coincidence.”  She laughed at his startled tone.  Data refilled their glasses and she presented him with a box, her eyes expectant.

            The box held a gold watch, masculine but slim, to match his fine artificial substructure, she said.  “Dae, this must have cost—”

            One hand went up to hush him.  “It’s from my roulette winnings, sugar, so don’t worry!  It’s just that, since you’ve been such a good friend, I wanted to commemorate that.  I know getting a watch for someone with an internal chronometer is like carrying coals to Newcastle, but I couldn’t think of anything else on short notice.  And it does go very nicely with your tux.”

            He fastened the watch on his wrist, shot his cuffs, and had to agree; despite a minute imperfection in the crystal, likely unnoticed even by the jeweler, it was an elegant piece of workmanship.  “Now it is my turn.  Close your eyes, please.”  She did, opened them at his word, and stared.  The narrow gold choker-length necklace held, by a small cap of pavé diamonds, a pearl drop one-half the length of her thumb.  Petite gold swirls of earrings carried smaller pavé-capped pearl drops.

            The look in her eyes justified his selection.  She pulled him into the bedroom and stood before the bureau mirror to put the gold posts through her earlobes.  “Help me with the necklace?”  He lifted it over her head, fastened the catch and, when she faced him with another smile, settled the pearl into the hollow of her throat where it seemed to belong.

            “Data, this is beautiful.  You shouldn’t have done it.”

            He blinked.  “As you wished to commemorate our friendship, so did I.  And the occasion appeared to be a fitting opportunity to execute multiple avians with a single fragment of geologic amalgam.  And there is one more thing.”  He opened a square box of blue velvet to show her a wedding band etched with curling vines and flowers.  Dae looked at him, lower lip aquiver.

“It is logical to assume that a real husband, in possession of considerable winnings, would buy his wife a wedding ring,” he reminded her.  He took the band from its velvet bed and slipped it on her finger.  “It seems I correctly estimated the size.  Do you like it?”  He looked up to find tears glistening on her lashes and a stunned smile on her lips.  “Are you all right, Dae?”

            Dae nodded.  “I’m overwhelmed.  It’s beautiful, and you…Data, you’re just wonderful.  Thank you.”  She kissed him almost as enthusiastically as during his lesson.  “I guess we should be going,” she sighed as they both checked their makeup jobs and she grabbed her purse.

            Data presented Sinclair’s card to the man posted at the elevator.  He inspected it and unlocked the penthouse level.  Data noted a bulge under the man’s left arm; Sinclair, it appeared, had an armed guard.  There was another armed guard at the end of the elevator trip.

            If the honeymoon suite was elegant, the penthouse was Versailles in miniature.  White brocade drapes pooled on walnut floors polished like mirrors, set off by furniture upholstered in jewel-toned velvets.  Hutches displayed silver and crystal _objets d’art_ , masterpieces bedecked the walls, and statuary stood in corners or lined the garden paths.

            Though half the roof held the requisite helipad and hotel utilities, they were screened from the suite by trees and shrubs forming the border of an ornamental garden.  A master had designed it, one who managed to provide both sweeping views and intimate bowers in very little space.

            Dae and Data joined the end of the receiving line.  Max was conservative in his elegance, and Dae thought him rather nice-looking, though not equal to Data.  Mrs. Cecilia Sinclair, or Ceci, as she insisted they call her, was a petite Italian of middle age.  She wore a simple dress in garnet silk and glowed with obvious happiness.

            When Max introduced them, Ceci laughed, “So you are Max’s latest projects!  How nice to meet you both.  I see the tailor and couturier are also to be congratulated.  My dear Dae—I may call you Dae, mayn’t I?—that gown is charming!  I would love to wear one like it, but I would forever trip over the hem, and when one is on the roof, that can be a dangerous thing!”

            “Can’t have that, Ceci,” Max agreed.  “If anything ever happened to you, I wouldn’t know what to do.  Mrs. Oliver seems to remind me of someone, though damned if I know who.”

            “Oh, Max, really,” said Ceci, chuckling her impatience.  “It’s the _Galatea_ by the piano!  Come, you’ll see what I mean.”  They accompanied her to the sculpture, which everyone agreed looked a lot like Dae.  “So if Dae is the lovely Galatea,” Ceci went on with a mischievous grin, “Dana must be Pygmalion, who brought the statue to life with a kiss.”

            “Thank you, Ceci,” Dae said with a smile.  “I can’t take any credit for it, I’m a peacock in borrowed plumage, for which I must thank your husband.  And Pygmalion here,” she went on with a serious look at Data, “does have a lot to do with it.”  She bowed her head against his and touched his cheek, unconsciously showing off the gold band.  Data smiled his own surprised smile and whispered that she would have to be a pea _hen_ in borrowed plumage.  Ceci and Max laughed.

            “Come along, you two,” Ceci ordered with pleasant imperiousness.  “No, Max, I know you want to get Dana off into a corner and weasel his baccarat secrets from him, but let them get drinks and meet everyone first.  And I’m sure they’d like a dance, or a stroll in the garden?  The roses and gardenias are both in full bloom.  The scent is luscious.”  With an arm around each, she sailed them to the bar for champagne, thence to the buffet loaded with every delicacy imaginable.

            The French doors to the patio stood open, so the room was crowded but not crushing, with couples dancing both inside and out to the music of a small band.  Ceci handled the introductions, Max having been waylaid by another guest.  Data sorted the many conversations for future study, and observed the high end of the social pecking order at play.

            He soon realized that, save Dae and their hosts, few of the attendees behaved in ways the android associated with having fun.  Hearty laughter veiled calculating glances and many mercenary comments were made in voices designed to deceive the casual listener.

            Interestingly, Max acted as if he knew exactly who was there in true friendship and who came under false colors.  The former, such as Data and Dae, he treated well, seeing to their comfort himself; the latter, after a brief greeting, were left to the hired help.  Data decided Max was very perceptive.

            He watched Max with Ceci and saw the same feelings as those between Keiko and Miles O’Brien.  Thoughts of his friends were a sharp reminder of his isolation.  He excused himself from a conversation with one of the hangers-on, wondering at his reaction, and went to look out the windows.

            His vision let him see to Boulder Dam, though the dam proper and the lake were hidden by rough terrain.  He and Dae went there on their third day in town, after her luck turned bad and she said she needed an outing.  The magnificence of the achievement, given its primitive nature, was heightened by Dae’s wonder, and it had been a most pleasant experience.  He released a sigh, missing the accustomed sensory input of his friends, but knowing he had at least one friend here.

            Data felt a hand on his arm and smelled jasmine.  “What’s wrong?”

            “I was thinking of my other friends,” he told her.  “I miss them more than I would have thought possible.  For me.”

            Dae tsked.  “There you go again, thinking of yourself as a second-class citizen.  Untrue, sugar, you’re first-class all the way.”  She kissed his cheek and asked him to dance.

 

            It was well past midnight.  The party was still going full-tilt, though some of the lights had been dimmed in the vain hope the guests might start calling it a night.

            Data, faithful to his test, recorded it all, though most of it weighed toward Q’s opinion.

            He and Max had a long talk about computers, and touched on more esoteric topics like adaptive fuzzy systems and chaos theory.  Max impressed Data with his keen understanding, and he had several ideas for practical applications, though Data knew few of them would come to pass.  But it was as close to a conversation with La Forge as the android could get and he took full advantage of it.  Then Max excused himself and the android looked around for his “wife.”

            Dae and Ceci talked much of the evening, when Dae was not at Data’s side.  He saw her now, her ivory dress in vivid contrast to the ruby-red sofa where she sat with their hostess.  She seemed to know she was being watched, for with a happy smile and an apology for Ceci, she came to him, fanning her face.  “Are you warm, Dae?”

            “Oh, a little, maybe,” she said.  “It’s quite a party, isn’t it?  Dance with me again, please?”

            “I would be…happy to.”  She heard the brief hesitation as he used that inappropriate human expression, and sadness for him touched her face.  “Come here…my dearest,” he said in a low voice, heedful of their roles and the human penchant for endearments.  “You and Ceci appear to be friends now,” he said in a more conversational tone.

            “I know, she’s terrific,” Dae agreed.  “I was nervous as hell when we first got here, but she has a way of making me feel like I belong.  She even gave me her private number and told me to call next time we’re in town!  Did you know her family design and drive race cars in Italy?”

            He shook his head, conscious of the softness of her cheek against his, in sharp contrast to the immobility of her hair.  He mentioned it and she giggled, saying the stylist had shellacked it into submission and it would take an hour’s soaking in a bucket of warm water to melt the edifice.

            The android saw they were being watched.  Accessing his files, he found a close dance was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate affection; in his persona as husband, he pressed his lips to her neck, just where it met the shoulder.  It was, he noted, the precise spot where one would apply the Vulcan nerve pinch.  He felt her shiver and met her kiss.  He used a gentler technique than the one she had helped him develop, but her response implied she still found it impressive.

            A waiter handed them champagne.  “I just realized something,” she said, her lips brushing his cheek.  “The hangings on our bed are just the color of champagne.”  He pointed out the differences in pigmentation between fabric and liquid but agreed the gross effect was similar.

            “When we leave…” she began, then paused to kiss him again.  His olfactory subprocessors noted a sharp spike in her pheromone level, and her kiss increased in passion.  “Data,” she murmured, “let’s _use_ that lovely bed.”

            Data was astounded.  No woman in all his life, except Tasha, had so blatantly expressed desire for him.  Certainly Jenna had not, though things might have progressed to that point had she accepted his emotional limitations.  And Thea’s interest, in retrospect, seemed rooted in his newness to her social circle, since she had not called again after their unsuccessful second date.

            There had been invitations to share intimacy from various women during his life, but they came only after learning Data was an android.  He had always declined.  At first it was because, as an android, he believed his memory and programming held all the knowledge he could ever need about sexuality; what new information, he had asked, could be gained by such actions?  Later, as he assimilated more fully into the human culture around him, he realized those women had approached him because he was a novelty.

            He learned he did not wish to be propositioned.  He wished to be invited.  As Tasha had invited him.  As Dae invited him now.

            To leave no doubt of her intent, Dae drew the tip of her tongue along the back of his ear.

            _“Be careful, android!” Captain K’Vada warned, taunting him, walking around him to inspect his disguise.  “Some Romulan beauty might take a liking to you, lick that paint right off your ears!”_   Dae was not Romulan, but she could certainly be classed as a beauty in human terms.  She was an admirable person.  She was his friend.

She was quite definitely licking his ear.

            Data said yes.

            Dae whispered, “Oh, my Data, who gives me jewels and more than jewels, you are a jewel beyond price!” and kissed him again.  It brought another memory of Tasha.

            Tasha, who called him a jewel and took him to her bed when she was intoxicated, and who denied the event when sober.  Concerned by the similarity, Data reviewed the party and found nearly every view of Dae included champagne.  In addition, she had only nibbled at the buffet selections.  With the wine at the salon, plus the champagne and lack of food ingested at the party, Dae had slowly but surely become drunk.  Not Jensen’s brand of drunkenness, but impaired nonetheless.

            Data had made a personal decision after the interlude with Tasha, to never again engage in intimate behavior with an intoxicated woman.  If she was not a friend, the action was pointless at the outset, and if she was, he did not wish to risk that friendship as he and Tasha had unwittingly risked theirs.  Having just said yes to Dae, he had a dilemma on his hands.  He decided to stall for time and invited her into the garden.

            Now Data had no way to know, and Dae, not thinking she was drunk, did not say, but the sudden mix of fresh air and abundant alcohol always affected her like six more drinks.  His first indication that the situation had worsened instead of improved came when Dae, discovering they were in a private sort of grotto surrounded by gardenias, flowed into his arms and kissed him.  Repeatedly, enthusiastically, and with increasing ardor.

            There were a couple of chairs nearby, wicker peacock chairs with their huge backs to the rest of the grotto and a table between them holding a phone, a cut crystal decanter and several snifters.  Dae suggested they share a chair, and maybe a snifter, and get more comfortable.  She raised his hand and kissed each knuckle, then his palm.  He pulled away as if she was a warp core in breach.  “What’s the matter?”

            “Dae, you are intoxicated,” he pointed out as gently as he could.

             “You know,” she said, “I think you may be right.  But since it’s by you, what of it?”  Her smile was playful as she begged him for another of his marvelous kisses.

            He shook his head.  “No, Dae.  Alcohol intoxication.  And I therefore must decline your requests.  Both this and your earlier one.”

            “But Data, you already said yes,” she said.  “And you bought me this gorgeous jewelry, and a wedding ring.  Why would you do that if you didn’t intend—”

            “I explained that earlier.”  He hoped his logic could penetrate the haze of champagne.  “The pearls were to express my thanks for your friendship, and to increase the aesthetic quality of your ensemble.  The wedding ring fits our personae of husband and wife.”

            “You bought me a wedding ring to use in a role, for one night?”  She struggled with the idea.  “That doesn’t make sense.”

            He said it made a great deal of sense, if looked at from the proper perspective.

            “But…but I thought you cared for me.”

            “I do care for you.  In my own way,” he added as she planted another eager kiss on his mouth.  “But it is nothing that can be equated to an emotional response.”  He wished he could hate bringing such a look of injury to her trusting face.

            “Then if you care for me, why not make love with me?”  An idea struck her, and she flushed.  “Is it…is it because you can’t?  Oh, Data, I didn’t realize that was what you meant when you said you couldn’t completely understand romance!  I’m so sorry!”  She was almost in tears, thinking she had made a dreadful mistake.  Of course, she had, but in the wrong direction entirely.

            “Dae, listen to me.”  His voice was stern, and he removed her arms from around his neck with firm but gentle hands.  “I am fully capable in that regard.  My father constructed me male in both form and function, and provided me with full programming in human sexuality.  I can give you complete physical satisfaction—”

            “Oh, sugar, please!” she pleaded, and locked her arms around him in renewed passion.

            “Dae!” he said, his sharp whisper like a splash of cold water.  “I can give you physical satisfaction, but I cannot _love_ you.  My programming, as I have told you, does not include emotions.  I will not risk our friendship because intoxication caused you to forget that.  I believe, from what I know of you, you would not be satisfied with so one-dimensional a relationship.”

             “I’m a big girl, and I know exactly what I want.”  She brushed her lips across his, along his cheek and ear.  “I want _you_ , and I still don’t know why you changed your mind.  It isn’t going to foul up your programming, is it?”  Her voice fell.  “The way you kissed me betrays you, Data.  You want me, I know you do.  And aren’t androids supposed to want what’s best for humans?”

            He shook his head.  “The way I kissed you reflects nothing more than my interpretation of actions appropriate to the situation.  I do not ‘want’ in any connotation, because ‘want’ is an emotion and I cannot know it first-hand.

            “As to android behavior, I am not one of Dr. Asimov’s humaniform robots, however much I might remind you of one, and his Three Laws of Robotics do not rule me; I have no overriding necessity to please humans, nor will I go into positronic shock if I fail to do so.  But I possess a sense of ethics, and I know it would be unethical to engage in intimacy with you when you are not in full possession of your faculties.”  Data put his arms around her, only to comfort her, and said, “I will not.  I am very sorry, Dae.”

            “So am I.”  Tears falling, she pulled away and hurried toward the penthouse.  Data almost followed her but stopped, thinking she wished to be alone.  Then he heard something unexpected.

            It was the sound of a telephone handset being lifted from the cradle.

            “Xavier,” Max said into the mouthpiece, “a Mrs. Oliver will be coming out of the elevator.  Dark-haired Caucasian, white Grecian dress.  She and her husband are in the honeymoon suite.  She’s not feeling well, so call the night clerk, let him know she may need a card key, then you may leave the elevator long enough to be sure she gets home safely.  Thank you.

            “And now, Mr.…Oliver,” said that very quiet voice, “perhaps we can continue our talk.  Won’t you join me?”  The hand that had held the telephone waved to the other chair.


	16. Chapter 16

16

 

 

            “Four in the morning,” Dae muttered as she dropped her book, “and I feel like hell.”

            She had recognized the truth in Data’s words during the elevator ride: her stomach stayed in the penthouse while her head seemed to fall straight to the basement.  Without the night clerk and Max’s aide Xavier to help her, she would have passed out on the way to her suite.

            With nothing else to do, Dae undressed, already nursing a hangover.  She pulled the pins and ribbons from her hair and tried to brush it while soaking in a warm bath, but the brush stuck.

            She ended up stretched out on the marble ledge with her hair in the water to wash out the goo.  Twenty minutes later, she combed it out and wrapped a towel around it before pulling on a robe.  It smelled of sandalwood.  Data’s cologne, on his robe.  Dae bit her lip.  “How could I have done that to Data?  I haven’t thrown myself at a man in years, whatever possessed me?”

            _Alcohol, dimwit,_ came the inner voice that sounded like her mother’s.  _You know better than to drink without eating!_   _The question now is, what are you going to_ do _about it?_

            Dae flopped into a chair.  She knew exactly what to do: apologize to Data for being an ass and hope they could patch things up.  “Damn the money.  I wish we’d never come here.”

            Only once had she ever felt so stupid, and the reminder made her even sicker.

            After an hour passed without word from the android, she began to get angry.  Combined with her regrets, it gave her a splitting headache, richly deserved perhaps, but little appreciated.  “If he cares about me so much, why doesn’t he come back?  Bet he’s afraid I’ll make another pass at him.”  The next instant she was sorry for the thought.  He probably thought she had no wish to see him, or needed sleep, or something else just as considerate.

            Next came boredom.  It sent her to the bathroom to shake the tumbled mass of her hair into something resembling order, and rinse the sour taste from her mouth.  Then she dressed, and jeans and one of Data’s long-sleeved shirts made her feel more like herself.

            She picked up her book, but it bored her in five minutes so she started to pack.  It was that or phone the penthouse looking for him, something she refused to do.  When she came to her new jewelry, she sniffled a little.  Offering them back to him would hurt, but she would do it gladly if it meant they could stay friends.  The packing done, she opened the book again.

            It was a bad choice.  The author seemed to be trying to set a record for the number of plot-advancing liaisons contained in four hundred pages.  Unrealistic as it was, Dae was soon picturing herself and Data in the roles, and she dropped the novel into her suitcase.  “Hell,” she said.  “I should have stolen a couple of magazines from the salon.”

            Where could he be?  Even if he meant to give her time to herself, wasn’t this more than enough time?  Would he have left town without her?  He could be on his way to L.A. already!

            Fear touched her.  What if he had left Vegas and _not_ gone to L.A.?  What if he disappeared from her life as suddenly as he entered it?  “Oh, no,” she whimpered into her hands, “please don’t let it be that!  Data, oh, Data, where are you?”

            Really worried now, Dae paced, paused, paced again.  She rinsed her pale face and swallowed three aspirin, then swallowed her pride and called the penthouse.  The switchboard wouldn’t put the call through, citing the late hour, but when Dae explained, the operator said Mr. Oliver had left a message that he was going out for an early breakfast with Mr. Sinclair.  Feeling lost and alone, Dae went to the bedroom.

            The maid had folded back the comforter.  The white silk sheets, cool and soft under her fingers, were turned down beneath fat piles of pillows.

            Atop each pile sat a tiny box tied with gold ribbon.  Dae opened one and found a chocolate truffle.  She bit into it, closing her eyes in bliss as the tastes of bittersweet chocolate and raspberries burst over her tongue, mingling with the rich texture of the truffle.  On one nightstand stood a pair of flute glasses and another ice bucket, this time holding a bottle of _blanc de noirs_ , rosé champagne.  The setting encouraged the most sensual of thoughts.  Dae burst into tears.

            Maybe that was what Data was really doing: staying away until there was no reason to use the bed, to lie beside her in the darkness to fool the housekeeping staff and risk a repeat of her ill-bred behavior.  Her abrupt exit might have caused talk of a lovers’ spat, and Data must have received plenty of advice on dealing with it.

            “Just let her go, son,” the older men would have told him, “the wedding may be over, but the jitters aren’t, and confidentially, we heard about what that bastard pulled in the casino.  She’s probably still upset, you know how wound up women can get.  Put it all together, and you have an explosion waiting to happen.”

            They would have clapped the android’s shoulder, offered him something stronger than wine to drink and man-to-man advice to keep out of her way for a while.  “Stay at the party, or try the casino.”  Or have breakfast with Max.  “Let her calm down.  And when you go back,” and there would be knowing winks, “well, you’ll still have a few hours to enjoy all the amenities!”

            Cursing her stupidity, she curled up on the bed and fell into an uneasy sleep.

 

* * *

 

            “Jenna, hurry!  I don’t want anybody to beat us to the holodeck!”  A most impatient La Forge stood in the center of her living room.  Their schedules in sync again, the engineer wanted to make up for lost time.  He was tired, irritable, worried about Data, and in need of a diversion.

            She appeared carrying a small bag, wearing the dress that matched her eyes and looking mystified.  Which was just what he wanted.  He took her arm and hustled her out of her cabin.  “What’s going on, Geordi?” she asked, already out of breath.  “We’ll find a free holodeck.”

            “I know.”  His smile turned sly.  “I have a special program I want to show you.”

            They reached one of the small holodecks and found it empty.  “Good.  Computer, access program La Forge Three, and load it on my order after we enter.”

            “Acknowledged.  Enter when ready.”  The doors thudded closed behind them.

            “Computer, run program,” said La Forge.  He brought her close for a kiss.

            D’Sora felt the floor change beneath her feet.  She sank a couple of centimeters into a granular surface, smelled salt, and opened her eyes on a palm-fringed beach where moonlight highlighted the waves.  Two big towels lay close together above the high tide line.  “Well, what do you think?” La Forge asked, dropping their bags on the towels.

            “Is this Brethal?”  She looked around again.  “No, not Brethal, the trees are different.  It’s pretty, though.”

            He sighed in relief.  “Glad you like it.  C’mon, let’s go for a swim.”  He started to pull off his shirt.  She didn’t move.  “Don’t want to swim?  We can sit and watch the waves instead.”  When she still didn’t answer, he got worried.  “Or I can order up a snack, or some music.  You like violins?  Guitar?”  La Forge was desperate to fix whatever was wrong, and all his insecurities landed on him like a ton of duranium.  “If you want,” he said, and fear of losing her made his voice rough, “I can change the program—”

            “Geordi.”  The word was so gentle, his fear doubled.  “It’s a lovely program, I wouldn’t change a thing.  And I am hungry.”  She touched his cheek.  “But mostly I’m wondering why, when we have kilometers of beaches within transporter range, we’re standing on holodeck sand?”

            He kissed her wrist, then worked his way up to her ear.  “Then again,” she sighed, “staying here could be very nice.”  She tightened her arms around him and felt his laugh.

            “No, you’re right.  And I know just the place.”  The Malèdri’s second choice, it was on an island near, but not too near, the aquaforming site.  “Ever been to Bindi Prime?”  She shook her head.  “Beautiful planet.  This island reminds me of it.  And it should be night there.  Care to join me in the transporter room, Lieutenant D’Sora?”  His lips stopped her answer, so she nodded.

            “If I pack our picnic, Commander La Forge.”

 

            Seven minutes later they stood on a genuine moonlit beach, towels over their shoulders and picnic hamper between them.  A dormant volcano towered in the jungle.  Blooms big as dinner plates hung thick on the trees and glowed with reflected light.  Their spicy scent warmed the breeze rustling the leaves, the sound mingling with lapping waves and a waterfall nearby.

            “This is perfect,” she sighed.  Every sight was beauty, and every sound was like music.  “How can I thank you?”  She blushed, knowing what he would say, and he did.  “After dinner?”

            La Forge said, “Mind if I inhale my food?”  She laughed in glee as they spread their towels and unpacked the hamper.

            The centerpiece was _pasta al fiorella_ , accompanied by briny-sweet Balosneean oysters on the half-shell, a selection of sliced chilled vegetables, fresh bread, and wine whose vintage, if not quite nectar of the gods, was as close as mere mortals could get.  La Forge approved her menu as he picked up an oyster.  “Just one thing.  You do know the reputation oysters have, don’t you?”

            D’Sora pushed him back on one elbow, slipped the mollusk from its shell and dropped it into his waiting mouth, followed with a teasing kiss.  “Why do you think I brought them?”

            They talked pleasant trivialities, took turns feeding each other a tidbit of this or that, sipped wine from the same glass.  Dessert was coffee and Worf’s Tarvokian pound cake.

            She traded the empty wine bottle for a smaller one of Quariscene flower nectar and poured more coffee.  “You said something about a swim?” she asked, and unlaced her tunic and skirt to reveal a swimsuit made of silver mesh.  She began to stand, but La Forge held her back.

            “Didn’t you know you aren’t supposed to swim right after eating?  You might get a cramp,” he told her.  He lay back and admired the radiation patterns of the moons, inhaling the air with a sigh of contentment.

            “Really?”

            “Oh, yes, it’s a well-known fact.  Overexertion after eating is very bad for you.”

            “Really?” she repeated.  “How long should we wait?”

            He made a great show of racking his brains.  “Let’s see, half an hour, or is it an hour?”  He scratched his head.  “We’d better make it an hour, just to be safe.”

            “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” she asked, all innocence.

            “Oh, I have an idea or two that might while away the time.”

 

            A short time later she murmured against his neck, “I thought we weren’t supposed to exert ourselves?”

            He chuckled, “That’s in the water.  I never heard anything about on land.”

 

            They were so intriguing, these who might be her new children, and those whose vessel floated above the planet.  The creature looked forward to better knowledge of both groups.

            She knew the ones above still scanned the waters, seeking her and her children.  She had extended a small part of herself over the seas to block their instruments, intending to reveal her planet only when she was sure they were worthy.  It would be too late for her children if she made a mistake through eagerness or impatience.

            She was very close to them now, near a small island where two of the visitors engaged in an affectionate union.  Many of the feelings of her new children and the visitors were alien, and some were unpleasant; others were familiar, like the emotions of these two.

            The Reth swam closer to the island, extending her awareness, and found a storm building to the south.  It was not a large storm, but it was violent and could do damage.  She tried to warn the two, but they were too enraptured with each other to feel her mind-touch.

 

* * *

 

            Data hesitated.  So focused had he been on Dae, he had missed the sound of Max’s breathing, though it was clear in his memory record.  The man had heard some of his talk with Dae, it was certain.  But how much?  Which parts? 

            For his own protection, he had to find out what Max knew.  Data sat.

            Max offered him a cigar, which the android declined.  “Pity, it’s a Monte Cristo,” Max said as he savored it.  “Will you at least join me for a drink?  The custom of cigars and cognac is one of the last truly civilized things in the world.”  Data swirled the glass and sipped, and Max asked his opinion.

            He sipped again.  “This is a very fine cognac.  Unblended.  Aged more than fifty years.”  It was seventy-five if it was a day, but Data chose not to be quite so precise.  “Quite remarkable, Mr. Sinclair.”  He took another sip and tried to look like a man of discernment.

            Max smiled in the shadows.  “I hoped you would appreciate it, Mr.…Oliver.”  That pause again.  Was he suspicious of Data’s alias?  The older man relaxed, cigar smoke spiraling up in the cool air.  “Man’s lot is not always easy, is it?”  Data’s brows rose.  “He always hopes to be worthy, does he not?  Worthy of trust, responsibility.  The love of a good woman.

            “And how unkind fate is, that instead of being worthy, we cause disappointment by our natures.”  Minimal stress on the last word.  “As if our programming has been badly debugged.”

            “Have you disappointed Ceci?” asked Data.  Let Max seem the topic of conversation, for no remark as obvious as that would make him slip.  Besides, he was truly interested in the answer.

            “Inevitably, Daneel,” and at that name Data has to actively suppress a start, “sorry, _Dana_ …I find I have.  But not often, and not badly, or she might have left me.  If Ceci left, I don’t know what I’d do.”  He fell silent, and Data detected no falsehood in his words.  “Do you find yourself disappointing your charming and beautiful wife?”

            “I seem to have done so tonight,” he said in so ironic a tone that Max chuckled.

            “But you’re newlyweds,” Max reminded him.  “You need to spend time in learning about each other, you know, even if you took the new-fangled route and lived together first.  Ignorance may be bliss in some cases, but in marriage, it can be anything but.”  Content, he puffed his cigar.  “Was she ignorant of you, do you think, or you of her?”

            “Some of each, I believe.”  The man was very cautious with his probing, Data thought; this conversation might correspond with his and Dae’s only by accident.  “As you say, time should allow us to remedy the situation.  And speaking of time,” he said with a glance at his handsome new watch, “it is very late.  I ought to see how Dae is.  Thank you, Max, for the cognac, and the advice.”  He set down his snifter with an appearance of regret and stood.

            “Don’t leave, Mr.…Olivaw.”  Max could have slurred the last syllable, but combined with the use of the name “Daneel” earlier, Data thought it was a test, that Max had heard him mention Asimov.  “I wanted to know more about you.  Where you’re from, what you do for a living.”  His look was sharp.  “Who your father is.  I’m especially interested in your father.  He must be quite remarkable to have…produced a son like you.”

            The phrasing, the subtle changes in address from “Mr. Oliver” to “Mr. Olivaw,” as if Max was either tired or drunk— _Very clever,_ thought Data, who saw no signs either of fatigue or intoxication.  He must therefore assume Max had heard most or all of his discussion with Dae.

            “Yes, quite remarkable, Max.”  He would offer nothing.  Let Max tell him what he wanted.  And then Data would know what he faced.

 

            They continued, cat-and-mouse, for most of an hour, Max setting verbal traps that the android neatly avoided.  More comments about Data’s relationship with Dae, about his father—Data twisted them back and saw his opponent’s poise fail.  Max might be a genius in many ways, but Data was an android, intricately fashioned, comprehensively programmed, and Starfleet-trained to hold his own in any kind of battle.  Even this urbane, hidden kind.

            At last Data stood.  He was convinced Max knew he was an android but did not grasp the full implications.  Data’s best course of action was to leave before Max, thinking he knew more than he did, discovered by accident something of real importance.

            “I have enjoyed our conversation, Max,” he said, and he meant it.  “And I appreciate the kindness you have shown us.  Perhaps we will meet again.  But I must return to Dae now, she will be worried by my long absence.”  He started toward the French doors—and heard a soft, dangerous _click_.  He halted in his tracks, turned, and found himself staring down the barrel of an efficient-looking pistol.  A Beretta, Data noted reflexively, 0.38 caliber, automatic.

            It would take a very lucky shot to damage him, but there was no reason to let Max know that.  “What have I done to offend you?”  His look made the other man waver—for a moment.

            “Data, if that’s really your name,” Max began, but when Data didn’t respond, he shrugged.  “Fine, be difficult.  Data, you know the kinds of businesses I own.  You may not know, however, that I’m actively involved in artificial intelligence systems and robotics research.  Most people see the fields strictly in the light of manufacturing:  how sensitive can we make the program that runs the robotic welding arm?  Not me.  I want to build real robots.  Real androids.

            “But the programs fail, the artificial limbs have no subtlety.  It’s been very frustrating.

            “I didn’t intend to eavesdrop on you and your wife,” he said.  “I came out here to escape that crowd of sub-moronic sycophantic hangers-on.  For some reason, my wife likes them.  More importantly, they seem to like her.  Unlike me, whom they tolerate only for my grotesque quantities of money.”  A bitter smile twisted his lips.  “And she loves to entertain, so I let her, and Ceci allows me my occasional gaming losses and my escapes into the garden.

            “Once I realized what you and Dae were talking about, I couldn’t help myself!  The joy of discovery, you know.”  Max’s eyes glittered just like the moonlight on that unwavering muzzle.  “Imagine it, Data, my research into AI and cybernetic systems at a standstill and an _android_ , ready to be studied, copied, shows up at my party!  It was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

            “Why, Max?” Data asked.  “Your motive cannot be profit.  Even if you have suffered undisclosed reverses, a tenth of your estimated net worth would be more than adequate to support you and Ceci in this style.”  He glanced toward the sumptuous penthouse.

            “I’d hoped you’d understand.  There are so many ways androids could make life better for people, that’s all I want.”  Then a greedy light filled his eyes.  “Getting my name in the science journals has a certain appeal, too.  All those ‘real’ scientists who say I’m only a software hack!

            “I never went to college.  My parents couldn’t afford it.  But I taught myself all I could and landed a job in a company that saw the potential in computers.  When I made suggestions, they ignored me, so I scrimped and scraped and went into business for myself.  Two years later I bought them out.  I’ve worked like a dog for all I have, no one can say I didn’t earn it!”  His laugh was harsh against the faint noise of traffic.  “Now I’ve got honorary degrees to burn!”

            “Your story is admirable,” Data said, “a compliment to your upbringing, and to your drive and ingenuity.  But now you intend to profit from another’s genius.  How have you earned that?”

            “I’m fifty-six,” replied Max.  “I’ve learned to take the chances fate hands me, especially if they’re in my own back yard.”  He gestured with the gun, and Data headed to the suite.

            “And several of my companies are—stretched thin, shall we say?  Things are looking bleak.  A functional android, even a prototype, will definitely keep the wolves from the door.”

            Data thought quickly.  If he wished to overpower Max before they reached the penthouse, he could.  But if Max got off even one shot, it would alert the guards, and with no way to repair himself, Data could not risk even the minimal chance of being damaged by a stray bullet.  He would have to go along with Max’s plans and reveal as few of his extraordinary abilities as possible.  That Max would never be able to recreate Noonien Soong’s achievement would be small satisfaction if the achievement lay in pieces in a laboratory.

            Xavier, the guard at the ground-floor elevator, joined them at a freight elevator with a man named Alec.  Both were Riker’s height and build, armed, and paid well enough to ignore illegalities.  All three trained guns on him during the ride.  Data concentrated on escape.

            The elevator stopped two levels above the casino.  Swift calculation told the android they were on the same floor as the security office—and eight floors below the honeymoon suite where Dae was either furious or frantic.  Or both.

            Max stopped in at the security office, then they went to a door with a card reader and attached keypad.  It was a conference room undergoing renovation.  Tarps shrouded the table and chairs against one wall, and drywall panels leaned against another.  Bundles of Romex, sturdy synthetic rope, and three well-equipped toolboxes sat next to a utility ladder.

            The room had no windows and only one door.  Data scanned on every frequency and detected an alarm system wired into a keypad matching the one outside the door.  He saw several places to conceal cameras, but none had been installed yet.

            Max said, “You’ll stay here a while.  I have to arrange to get you to my lab, and decide what to do about your lovely wife.”  At the mention of Dae, a smile crossed Xavier’s face.  Data wondered what it meant as Max went on, “She might be useful.  If you’re stubborn.”  It took all Data’s control to let the remark pass, for he wished Max to think such threats were useless.

            Or would it be better to imply he would cooperate if Dae were free?  It might gain time, for both of them, so he called on his acting experience and pleaded with Max not to hurt her.  “She cannot help you, she knows nothing of my…nature.”

            The billionaire studied his captive.  “We’ll see, Data.  If you behave yourself.  I’ll let you think about it.  Xavier, Alec, if you please?”

            Alec dragged a chair from under the tarp, and Xavier shoved Data into it after patting him down for weapons.  It was a standard chair, imitation leather seat and back attached to a squared tubular frame with wooden armrests.  Alec tied Data’s wrists and ankles to the chair frame while Xavier carried the toolboxes to the hall.  “To keep you from getting ideas,” said Max, amused.

            Data ignored Alec as he straightened the tarp over the chairs.  “I’ll try not to keep you waiting,” Max said as Xavier shut the door behind them.  Data heard the lock click, keys pressed to set a security code.  And then he heard a sound that snapped his head around.

            Three sets of footsteps leaving.  Not two, three.  Max was not posting a guard, probably because it would attract too much attention: what, in a room under construction, needed a guard?

            It was four hours, twenty-eight minutes past midnight, by Data’s internal chronometer.  He knew Max would have to remove him before the workday began, which gave him at most four hours to escape while drawing as little notice as possible.  Data went over his options.

            He could pull the chair apart, or snap the ropes.  Then he could knock down the door, return to the honeymoon suite and arrange with Dae for a leisurely drive home.

            Of course he could.  And alert every member of hotel security.  It would also tell Max that there was more to Data than met the eye and assure his determination to study the android.

            Very well, he could do nothing obvious.  He considered releasing the microsolenoids holding his forearms to his elbows, then push the limbs out from under the ropes.  But his bonds were too tight to allow passage of the greater circumference of his forearms, and his sleeves would make it impossible to reattach the limbs even if he could get them past his bonds.

            He could use his teeth, chew through the rope.  No, his human shape was not quite flexible enough to let his mouth reach his wrists.  Perhaps, if the knots were uppermost….  He twisted his wrists hoping to bring the knots within reach, but they refused to cooperate.

            Data continued to rotate his wrists, as close to frustration as he could be.  He felt his watch snag on his cufflink, then come free and slide a quarter-inch toward his hand.

            Dae usually wore her own watch with the face to the inside of her wrist, to keep from hitting the crystal on door frames, she had explained.  Data had unconsciously followed her example, and now turned his wrist so he could study the timepiece.

            It was of excellent quality, satin-finished gold with a square face.  It had only the one flaw, a microscopic fracture in the crystal that might have been rendered slightly less microscopic when Alec tied him to the chair.

            Data was suddenly thankful that Dae had not chosen a different gift.

            He pushed his arm forward and backward, working his sleeve towards his elbow a bit.  Moving the fabric out of the way gave him a fraction of an inch more space to work in.

            For most of an hour, he pressed the watch crystal against the edge of the armrest.  He hoped to use the existing flaw as a starting point and add stress fractures in a specific pattern.  If his luck held—he cocked an eyebrow at the concept of luck being applied to an android—

            The crystal cracked and broke.  Data turned his wrist and saw, as he hoped, the section of crystal nearest his hand was still embedded in the frame.  Jagged triangles had broken away on either side, leaving a broad arrowhead with its point and edges facing his body—and the rope.

            Back and forth, back and forth, inhumanly precise, and cautious lest he strain his makeshift tool and break it from the frame, Data used the crystal fragment as a saw against his bonds.

            Fifty-two minutes later, the last strands parted.  He jiggled his arm from side to side until the rope slackened, then untied the other ropes and went to the tarp-covered chairs.  Uncovering the last one in line, Data reached under it and grabbed what no one else had noticed.

            Another toolbox.

            The vents were too small to let him leave that way, but the main ducts might not be.  Data set the ladder in one corner and pushed up a ceiling panel.  The ductwork would indeed fit him with room to spare, and he tested its strength.  Yes, it was sturdy enough to bear his weight.

            Data took several screwdrivers, heavy wire cutters, a roll of duct tape and a pair of metal shears from the toolbox.  He snipped off several feet of Romex and took it to the door.

            He cut off ten inches of the wiring, stripped each end, and removed the cover plate from the keypad panel.  Then he attached the bare wires to the terminals, bypassing the simple alarm.

            The android stripped more insulation and twisted the exposed wires around the keypad terminals.  A rheostat controlled the room lights.  He removed the switch plate, turned the lights to minimum, and wired the keypad to the rheostat.  If he was correct, decreasing resistance in the rheostat—brightening the lights—would short out the pad and unlock the door.

            If he miscalculated, he might as well have used brute force for all the good it would do.  Data experienced an illogical impulse to cross his fingers as he turned the lights up.

            When they reached two-thirds of normal, a sizzling click announced the unlocking of the door.  He listened for signs that his actions had been detected, and heard none.

            He removed all the wires but the alarm bridge and replaced the cover plates and ladder.  He put the used wiring in the toolbox and put it under the tarp, but left his chair where it was.  The bindings with their traces of makeup he would dispose of later, perhaps in Dae’s fireplace.

            He tested the tensile strength of the rope and coiled fifty feet of it around his waist in case of emergency.  He secured the tools in his pockets, folded his wig into an inside pocket to protect it from whatever grime lined the duct, and sprang up through the open ceiling panel.  At the zenith of his leap, he caught hold of two pipes and pulled himself into the crawlspace.  Closing the ceiling panel, he unscrewed a flange joining two section of ductwork.

            A gentle pressure on the metal caused the duct to buckle back on itself.  Data slid inside as easily as a greased pig, brought the flange as close to the end of the duct as he could, and eased the two parts together.  He pulled the side opposite him just into the duct where he sat, holding it by the edges with the tips of his fingers, and heard the flange rattle as the two ends joined and the buckle straightened.

            Six minutes after the rope gave way, Data crawled away into the lightless maze.


	17. Chapter 17

17

 

 

            The storm was on them before they knew it, stinging rain mixed with hail that sliced leaves and bruised the flowers’ thick petals.  “Quick, under the trees!” shouted La Forge.  D’Sora stopped long enough to grab their clothes and her bag.  He hurried her along, wrapped the towels around them for what scant protection they could provide, and sheltered her with his body.  Hail pounded the engineer, ripped through fabric and started on skin.  He hissed in pain.

            It passed in minutes.  As the last raindrops pattered, she put her arms around him and asked how badly he was hurt.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I’m numb from the hail.”

            “You sure got wet, your back is slippery.”  She let him go and gasped to see blood staining her arms. “Geordi, come out of here so I can see better,” she ordered.

            “I don’t feel very steady.”  In fact, seeing his blood on her arms made his head ache.  They went back to the beach and in the moonlight, she saw that his back was a solid slick of blood.

            D’Sora dug in her bag for her tricorder and scanned his injuries.  “Only lacerations and contusions, thank the Great Bird, but we should get you to sickbay.”

            “Let me catch my breath first.”  She spread out her towel and helped him sit.  He took a deep breath and touched some of the cuts, wincing.  “Besides, I’m not exactly in uniform.”

            He managed a shaky laugh when she said, eyes agleam, “I noticed!  Moonlight becomes you.”  The kiss they shared was tender, but he flinched anyway.  “Geordi, those cuts need attention.”

            “Can’t you just wash my back off instead of dragging me to sickbay?” he asked.

            She moved her tricorder in a slow circle and studied the readings.  “The closest source of fresh water is almost two kilometers away.”  She snapped the instrument shut.  “It’s salt water or the ship, and I highly recommend the ship, Geordi, even this low-saline water will sting terribly.”

            “I know, but help me in anyway.”  Muttering misgivings, she waded out with him until the waves were waist-high.

 

            There was pain, rending pain, within one of the visitors on the island.  The others, those at the bay where the storm now stood, were in their shelters.  The Reth changed course.  It was time for a gesture of good faith, another apology for the pain she caused with her first mind-touch.

            Her thought became reality.  The water changed.  It was still water, but somehow _more_.  She put a healing into it and sent it toward the injured stranger.

 

            D’Sora scooped up a double handful of water and poured it on La Forge’s back, apologizing for the sting.  “That’s okay, just keep it coming.  It helps.”

            “It would go faster if you lowered yourself in.”  She splashed water up over his shoulders as he knelt, cursing her insistence on coming down when he had a lovely, _safe_ holodeck program all set up.  At least his back looked better.  Maybe she had overreacted about his injuries.

            But he _had_ been wounded!  The blood was washing away, true, but so were the cuts!  She shivered.  “How…how do you feel?”

            “Fine.  Better than fine, I feel terrific.”  He stretched.  “No pain at all.”  He dunked himself under, stood up again and took her in his arms.  “I think you picked the wrong line of work.  Maybe you should become a doctor.”  He grinned, pleased that she was so worried about him, then noticed her odd expression.  “Hey, what’s wrong?  I’m fine, really.”

            “Can you touch your back?”  What ailed her?  Of course he could touch his back…

            “Oh, boy.”  Smooth skin met his fingers where there had been torn, bloodied flesh before.  She ran back to grab her tricorder and point it at the surf, then showed him the result, a fading bioelectric field where none existed before, but at a higher wavelength than any yet recorded.  And something else.  “Jenna, look out there and tell me what you see.”

            She saw it, and gaped at the speed of it, its immensity when it leaped.  Then they both felt that same mental probing, only this time it was soft, and it had a voice _.  “I am the Reth of Brethal.  Be welcome.”_   The water erupted as dozens of excited plesiapods breached.

            The shock of contact held them captive.  _“As you mean no harm to my children, so I mean you no harm.  I will go on, to where my Malèdri children wait.  I sense you have unfinished business.”_   La Forge winced, this time at the thought’s indulgent humor.

            D’Sora gulped.  “Do you think we should warn the Away Team?”

            The creature was already vanishing from sight, even his.  “I think they’ll know soon enough.”  He smiled at her, a naughty, sexy grin that reminded her of Riker.  “As for us, let’s see if we can salvage that bottle of nectar.”  The hamper, battered but intact, yielded a little more pound cake and the liqueur glasses.  They nibbled the cake and sipped their drinks in silence.

            The breeze sprang to life and showered them with a flurry of broken blossoms.

            They never did get their swim.

 

* * *

 

            It took plenty of creeping and climbing, but by half past six, Data sat in a duct over the honeymoon suite’s bedroom.  He listened, audio on high, and heard nothing but Dae’s gentle breathing.  The android turned in the ductwork maze and explored the length of the hall.

            At the far end, despite the noise of the climate-control system, he thought he heard someone else’s breathing, someone awake but not inside a room.  If he was right, here was Max’s sentinel, placed where he would see Dae if she left the room.  The fire stairs seemed unguarded, at least on this floor.  He crawled back to the duct over the bedroom.

            He used the metal shears to snip open a flap in the duct big enough to crawl through, then taped it closed.  Data opened an access panel and dropped to the floor at the foot of the bed.

            Dae stirred and he put his hand over her mouth.  Her eyes flew open, and went wider as she looked at him.  He was filthy head to toe, and the makeup was worn off his hands.  The android put his finger to his lips.  “What happened?” she whispered.

            Just as quiet, Data said, “I will explain later.  We must leave.”

            “We’re all packed.”  She stood and grabbed his jeans and a polo shirt.  “Clean up.  I’ll pack your tux.”  He cocked his head, curious.  “Well, it fits you.  And,” she added with a pointed look at the sleeves and collar, “it’s got makeup on it.  Do we leave it?”

            He shook his head and peeled off the tux on his way to shower off the dirt.  When he came out, camouflage restored, she was putting his shoes and socks by the sofa.  Their luggage sat in the center of the room, his stolen tools and the room card on the floor beside the pile.  Data covered the tools with a garment bag.

            He sat to put on his footwear and motioned her over to tell her about the presumed guard.  “We must get him into the room.  He will probably reveal himself if you open the door.  If it is someone you recognize from Max’s, ask him to assist you in retrieving some item.”

            She nodded and, turning away, made some adjustments to her clothing.  Her shirt, which Data noted was one of his, was now tied to leave her midriff bare, and the top button of her jeans exposed her navel.  Lastly, she undid the shirt buttons to show far more cleavage than her norm.  Data raised his eyebrows, and she shrugged.  “Somehow, I don’t think Max is the type to hire female security people,” she mouthed, “so I figure the guard’s a guy.  Depending on which side of the fence he’s on, this will either help get his attention or make him laugh.  Am I right that _any_ distraction is going to work here?”  At his nod, she opened the door while he hid behind it.

            True to Data’s assumption, the guard came around the corner a moment later as if by chance.  “Oh!  What luck!  Good morning, Xavier,” Dae said in a voice that oozed sex.

            “Good morning, Mrs. Oliver,” Xavier replied.  “Something I can…do for you?”  Last night had been business, but he wasn’t blind, even if Mr. Sinclair was particular about not mixing business and pleasure.

            Dae laughed, a seductive sound.  “I seem to have misplaced my husband.  Here I’m trying to pack, and _he_ stays out gambling.”  She put on a pretty pout.  Data wished he could see Xavier’s face—the man’s pheromone levels were on the upswing.  “Honestly, is it right for a man to abandon his wife on their honeymoon?”  Data’s olfactory sensors registered another increase in male pheromone.  Dae’s own hormone levels, he noticed with interest, were at an absolute nadir.

            “Not at all, especially if he has a wife as lovely as yourself to come home to.”  She laughed as if the comment flattered her and toyed with her collar, revealing more cleavage.  “Now,” Xavier said, eyeing the knot that held her shirt closed, “there’s something you needed help with?”

            Data recalled the man’s smile in the conference room, thought he now knew what it portended, and prepared to move quickly when the moment of truth arrived.

            “Um-hmm.”  Dae turned from the door, letting him follow if he wished.  He wished.  “I’m mostly packed,” she said, “but there are a couple of things on top of the tallboy I can’t reach.”  She did a yawn-and-stretch that sent the jeans an inch lower.  The shirt went taut.  “Sorry, that was rude,” she cooed on the way to the bedroom.  “And you were very kind to a lady in distress.”

            “It was my pleasure.”  His tone said more than the words.  “I should shut the front door, though, Mrs. Oliver,” he answered when he reached the bedroom.  She leaned against the tallboy.  “You don’t want anyone to steal anything.”  And he didn’t want to be interrupted.

            “Funny thing about that door,” she said, speaking in a louder voice as if to cover the few feet between them, hoping Data could hear her.  “It’s not balanced right, swings shut all by itself.”  And they heard it close.  “See what I mean?  Now, you can’t help me from over there, Xavier.”

            “No, ma’am, I can’t.”  She turned as he approached, and reached up, hating the picture she presented.  Xavier put his hands on her waist and bent to place a lingering kiss on her neck.  “He must have been crazy to let you leave alone, beautiful,” he murmured.

            Xavier meant it.  He was a pragmatist, not an idiot.  Whoever Dana Oliver was, he would be free had he left the party with this sexy item instead of hanging around with Sinclair.  But Xavier would see that she got what she so obviously wanted, and had not gotten, last night.

            Sliding one arm around her waist, he moved her scented hair to nibble the back of her neck.  He mistook her shudder of revulsion for a shiver of pleasure and started to go further as Dae, getting desperate, wondered what in hell Data was doing.

            What Data was doing was moving.  With Xavier’s focus no longer on his job, the android sped into the bedroom and applied a nerve pinch worthy of Spock himself.  He eased Xavier’s body to the floor, estimating he would be out for at least two hours.

            Now that the deed was done, Dae shook like a leaf and fumbled with the knot in the shirt.  “I am sorry I waited so long, Dae, but I wished to be sure his attention would not wander.  Your diversionary technique was impeccable,” Data added.  “Have you ever done this before?”

            Her back still to him, she stiffened.  Being mauled by two men in two days was two times too much.  With her clothing restored to pre-decoy order, she rounded on him, shaking with fury.  “Contrary to whatever opinion you may have formed of me,” she spat, “I do _not_ make it a practice to throw myself at men.  I’d slap you but I’m too much of a lady.  How soon can we go?  I feel filthy enough to need another bath.”

            He blinked at her anger and replied, “Almost immediately.  First we must conceal him, then we may leave.”  Data checked the hall and found a chair, obviously Xavier’s, near the supply closet.  Said closet was unlocked, so he set the chair inside and returned to the suite.

            He found Dae still in the bedroom, looking down at Xavier.  She asked in a tiny voice if the man was dead.  Surprised, Data said, “Of course not.  When he wakes, he may have a mild headache, but he will be otherwise undamaged.”

            Dae breathed a relieved sigh and hugged him a moment.  “What do we do now?”

            He pointed to the open ceiling panel and lifted her at the knees so she could close it.  Then he slung Xavier over his shoulder and asked her to get the door.

            They reached the supply closet unseen.  Data tied Xavier to the chair with some of his purloined rope, then gagged him and tossed a sheet over him as a finishing touch.  Returning to the suite, he found a phone book and paged through it faster than she could follow.

            “Do you have everything?”  At her nod, he used a damp washcloth to wipe off every surface that could hold a fingerprint, right down to the truffle boxes.  He explained, “My fingerprints are not on record in this time, but yours are.  Max could trace—”

            “Max.  Oh, God.”  A terrifying thought came to her.  “It’s my fault, isn’t it?  I did something to give you away.  Why was Xavier in the hall, Data?”

            He shook his head.  “I will explain later.  Please remain calm.”  The stolen tools he left in a nightstand beneath the complimentary religious tracts.  He handed her the cloth and checked the makeup on his hands.  “Take the small cases, please,” he said as he grabbed the others.  “Now, using the cloth at all times, please let us out and open the door to the fire stairs.”

            When they stood on the landing of the stairwell, Data listened for a breath from the bottom of the stairs.  There was none.  They went down to ground level, silent as hunting cats.

            The door to the outside was wired but Data thought he could bypass that problem and inserted the card key between the magnets forming the connection.  When both magnets touched only the card, he had Dae open the door.  She flinched in anticipation of an ear-splitting bell.  Silence.

            Dae moved the bags outside as he held the card in place.  Then he let the door swing shut and inched the card from the connection.  Still no alarms.  They hurried through the garden to the garage and Dae’s car.  Data tore the card in quarters and dropped two of the pieces in a nearby trash bin.  The washcloth went into a different bin; the other pieces of the card key followed it.

            All but their waist pouches went in the trunk, which Data opened and closed so gently not even a bird was startled awake.  A pay phone in the garage made it easy to call the bonded courier service Data had looked up, to have Dae’s car driven home.  He went so far as to say Max might be searching for them soon, a remark that struck Dae like an arrow.

            His next thought was to alter the motel records.

            Data reviewed his memory of all Dae’s conversations at the party; while she had talked about their trip, she had not mentioned their home, nor had he.  The honeymoon suite was no problem since, as Max’s guests, they had not registered.  But they had used Data’s identification at the motel, a forged driver’s license including Dae’s address.  That information had to change.

            Dae went through the front door and used a bad foreign accent to occupy the night clerk while Data slipped into the office and did what had to be done, in such a way that no one would notice, or could trace, the changes.  He signaled to Dae, who affected disgust with the clerk to cover the sound of Data’s leaving, then left in a huff herself.

            They returned to the garage in time to meet the courier, who took the delivery address and inventoried the contents of the car, including the evening clothes and very expensive jewelry.  She agreed to take the pair to McCarran Airport.  They huddled down in the back seat until they were well away from the motel.

 

            As they left the garage, Xavier began to trill.  To be more precise, his cellular phone began to trill.  Xavier roused a little, then passed out again.

            Max wondered why Xavier didn’t answer.  His arrangements were in place and he needed Dae.  “Alec,” Max called.  “Find out what’s going on.”  Very soon, Data would be in his high-security lab in the desert outside Las Vegas.  He savored the prospect with a smile.

            For about fifteen minutes, when Alec returned and reported that Xavier was nowhere to be found and the honeymoon suite was empty.

            “Empty?  What do you mean, empty?”

            Empty, Alec explained, as in no Mrs. Oliver, no luggage, and no sign the room had been occupied except one empty truffle box in the trash.

            “Xavier was supposed to be sitting in the hall,” snapped Max.  Alec shrugged slightly.  “Opinion?”

            Alec took a deep breath.  “I hate to suggest it, sir, but Xavier may have sold you out.”  Max’s face turned thunderous.  “I don’t know if you were aware of it, but Xavier mentioned to me in passing that he found Mrs. Oliver quite attractive.”  The description went much farther than that but there were some things one did not say to one’s employer.  “He expressed an intention to, as he put it, follow in your footsteps and take any advantage that came his way.  Perhaps Mr. Oliver’s wife, coupled with Mr. Oliver’s winnings, was enough to make betrayal worthwhile.”

            He said Xavier knew how to clean a room that was likely to be searched.  And Mrs. Oliver could never have gotten the luggage away alone.  “Shall I check the taxis?”

            “Yes,” replied a grim-faced Max.  “And find out everything you can about the Olivers.  Where they’re from, how they got here, where they stayed before I set them up here.  Now.”

            This put a definite crimp into Max’s plans.  He went to the garden to meditate on the ramifications.  Dae Oliver would have been excellent leverage; Max had seen the android’s concern at the idea she might be so used.  She would be found, and made to pay for trying to escape, and Data would be granted the privilege of watching.  Max was not a bloodthirsty man, but he had his limits.  For one of his own to cross him passed those limits, and if Xavier had betrayed him, revenge was going to taste sweet indeed.

 

            They stopped twice.  First Data withdrew additional cash from an automated teller and used some of it to pay the courier’s deposit.  The rest would be paid on delivery of the car to Dae’s home.  At the second stop, the bus station, he bought tickets for two to Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, and several other metropolises.  Then they went on to the airport.

            The terminal was crowded with holiday tourists and business travelers.  Data scanned the departures.  He wanted tickets on as many flights, to as many destinations, as possible.  Max would certainly check the airport.  “Please go to the waiting area,” he said, “and remain inconspicuous.  I will return as quickly as I can.”

            He made his way through the ticket lines of thirteen airlines in a short time, using all he had learned of stealth, guile, and plain sneakiness to cut, line-jump, and otherwise advance to the counter without undue attention.

            He managed by misdirection, and in some few cases, bribery, to avoid showing identification.  Under thirteen names, none of them his alias, he bought tickets to as many cities, and added complicated international connections.  All the initial flights were scheduled for take-off within three hours of each other, with their flight to Los Angeles in two.

            Data returned to Dae with his waist pouch bulging with tickets.  “Come, dear,” he said, and helped her up.  “Our flight leaves soon.”

            “Right, D—” she began, but the shake of his head warned her not to say his name.  “Right, darling,” she said instead.  “Lead on.”

            He outlined his plan as they walked.  They would go to the gate for the first scheduled flight—New York with a connection to Paris—board the plane, and leave it at the last minute.  They would do the same thing on as many of the other planes as timing allowed, until boarding the flight for home at the last second.  It would leave some tickets unused, but the others would be in the hands of the airline, “proving” that they had been on the flight.

            Dae gave him an admiring glance as she went through the metal detector.  She turned back, dismayed, as a buzzer went off.

            Data had not thought such a primitive device could scan his components, but it appeared he was wrong.  He put his pouch on the conveyor belt, went back under the sensor, and set off the alarm again.  When the bored attendant told him to place all his metal objects on the tray, he had a quick vision of a comedy he had seen, wherein a man removed his artificial limbs.  Doubting that similar actions would amuse Dae, he merely emptied his pockets.

            He still set off the alarm.  Their flight was called and Dae looked anxious.  And then, as the attendant asked whether he had removed _all_ his metal objects, he knew just what to say.

            “Yes.  Except my artificial hip.”  Dae burst into hysterical giggles as the attendant waved her scanner in the direction of Data’s hip and got a corroborating beep.  She waved him through and they ran toward their flight, Data juggling the contents of his pockets into his waist pouch.

            “Artificial hip!” Dae laughed.  “Perfect, Da…darling, just perfect!  But what happened to your watch?”  She had noticed the broken crystal when he put the watch in the tray.

            “It is part of the explanation I must give you, though this is too public a place to begin.”

            She was so caught up in their escape, she had almost forgotten they _were_ escaping.  But from what?  She just couldn’t stop wondering.  They went aboard, found their seats, and waited.  In the last flurry of boarding passengers, they slipped back to the gate and watched the plane take off without them.  Data led her to their next gate.

            Dae held his hand very tightly as they waited.

 

            Someone wanted extra towels from Housekeeping.  One of the maids trundled her little cart to the supply closet and unlocked the door.  The bath linens were near the front, so she braced the door with her cart and started pulling towels from the shelves.

            Someone moaned.

            She jumped and stared around.  Sometimes guests liked to play games.  But there was no one there, so she shrugged and got some more towels.

            There was another moan.  Louder.  Closer.  The maid saw a shrouded figure at the back of the closet.  It swayed from side to side and moaned again.

            The maid screamed.

            She kept on screaming until a security guard, called by an outraged guest, shook her quiet and asked what the ruckus was about.  When the shroud moaned again, the guard gulped, squared his shoulders with an effort, and went toward it.  He took the sheet in both hands and pulled.

            Xavier, not at all disturbed by the screams, mumbled into his gag.

            The maid fainted.  The guest never got his extra towels.

 

            By the time Xavier was taken to the hospital, had his stomach pumped and several vials of blood taken, and was identified as Maxwell Sinclair’s employee, he was groggy but awake.  Max waited for permission to visit him, Alec by his side.  At last the admitting physician said, “Look, we don’t know what happened to him.  You can try to get something out of him for the cops, if you want.”  The doctor waved them in.  “Be my guests, but make it short.”

            The man in the bed looked awful and felt worse.  Max just said, “Xavier.”  Xavier winced.  “I never expected such incompetence.  What did she do, sweet-talk you into letting her get away, then hit you and tie you up in the closet?  Or did you help her?”

            “No, Mr. Sinclair,” he answered with as much force as his aching head allowed.  “I…I was in the hall.  I heard the door to the honeymoon suite open, so I went around the corner just like you told me to.”  A dark flush spread up his neck as he recalled how she had come on to him.  “She said she was packing and needed something off a shelf she couldn’t reach.”  Repeating it now, he knew it sounded like a trap and felt like a fool for getting caught.

            “She went into the bedroom.”

            “And you followed her.”  Max made it a statement, his eyes flinty.

            Xavier swallowed against sudden fear.  Sinclair might look ordinary, but there was more, much more to him than met the eye.  Xavier swallowed again and said, “Yes, sir.  She was reaching up for something, and I went over and…and started to help her, and then the lights went out.  That’s all I remember until I woke up.”  She’d made a double-dyed jackass of him and if he ever got the chance, he would take great pleasure in paying her back.

            “Alec, answer a question for me,” said Max, his eyes on Xavier’s beet-red face.  “Do you think Mrs. Oliver, once having immobilized Xavier, could drag him to that closet, hide him there, leave the hotel with luggage for two, and attract no attention whatsoever?”

            Alec shook his head, prepared for Max’s next words.  “Then she must have had help.  Did you find out if they had a car?”  There was no record with the valet service of the Olivers, or Dae alone, parking or picking up a car.  “The airport, Alec.  Quickly.  I’m going back to the hotel, but I think we can assume Mr. Oliver is no longer in residence.”

            They left without another word for the invalid, who fell asleep with dark dreams of revenge for company.

 


	18. Chapter 18

18

 

 

            Soon after sentient life developed on Brethal, a guardian for the planet also evolved.

         Called the “Reth,” which translated to something akin to “mind” or “soul,” it aided Brethal’s evolution and protected it from outside harm.  It evaluated passing ships telepathically, and those who failed its psychic test would find the planet a barren and dangerous place.  Thus Brethal, through the power of its guardians, remained safe for millennia.

            Half of the sea species were sentient and visited the Reth to be tested for telepathy.  Those who passed became acolytes and began rigorous training; eventually, only one remained.

            Once chosen as the Reth, the creature dedicated itself to the well-being of the planet—all the life therein, sentient or not, became its children.  It grew until it was larger than the rest of its species.  Part of this growth involved the generation of special organs to expand and focus telepathic abilities, and allow limited physical control over the planet.  This was how the present Reth had healed La Forge, and how she and earlier guardians could fool sensors.

            Some things remained out of the Reth’s control.  Weather she could influence but not alter.  She could not interfere in the natural workings of predator and prey, nor kill except for food, nor cause harm save in defense of Brethal.

            But the ancient pattern had changed.  The present Reth had served more than twice as long as her predecessor.  In all the pilgrimages, though she still found acolytes, she found none qualified to take her place, and she feared Brethal might be undefended when she died.  And so she had cast her thought into space and found the Malèdri.  In her brief study, a mere two hundred of their years, she decided the Malèdri would be proper guardians until she could find her replacement—or in case she could not.

            When the Malèdri turned their eyes to their planetary neighbors, they saw Brethal through the perceptions of the Reth and found it a suitable new home.  The “Federation” they called upon was strange to the guardian, but she would tolerate anything to get the Malèdri to Brethal.  She knew now she had chosen well.

            The Malèdri understood the Reth’s worries and promised to take her request back to Maledin VIII for discussion.  _“Why wait?”_ the Reth asked in their minds.  _“I will explain to your people, if you think they can tolerate the mind-touch.”_   Sthal sent a subspace message to prepare her people for the contact, and the guardian of Brethal explained her case to all the Malèdri.

            They recalled the _Enterprise_ to begin immediate transport of the colony.

 

* * *

 

            Two hours’ sleep, an aching head, being pawed by that odious man, Data talking as if she did that kind of thing every day, and running for their lives, left Dae too tired to think. 

            Data sold many of their tickets as they waited; actual passengers in their seats would further blur their trail.  Now, waiting for the flight home, he spoke very little.  Not that she blamed him.  From his looks when he woke her, he’d had an awful time.  And it was all her fault for making a pass at her “husband.”  It forced him to explain things a man like Max would be fascinated to learn, and someone had overheard them.

            She was a fool, endangering Data’s life because she lost control of herself.

And yet he risked his life coming back for her instead of escaping.  Dae felt her cheeks go hot with shame.  She started to sniffle, caught herself and tried to make it a cough, since crying was bound to be lousy camouflage.  But Data heard it and asked, “Are you all right, dear?”

            Dae saw her reflection in his sunglasses.  “Yes, but sugar,” she whispered as she squeezed his hand and leaned against his shoulder, “I’m so sorry!”

            Data experienced his usual confusion when faced with intense emotions.  He deduced she had realized her inadvertent role in their need to escape, and knew in a clinical sense that she was likely feeling guilty, contrite, embarrassed, or perhaps a combination of emotions.

            And her comment after he nerve-pinched Xavier, about bathing again…he accessed his files and understood too late that engaging in even the sham of intimacy with someone for whom she felt nothing, or worse, loathing, could have left her feeling violated.  _And I asked if she had done such a thing before._ It was not, in retrospect, an apt remark, and it called for an apology.

            The loudspeaker blared.  “Flight 102, departing for Los Angeles International Airport, is ready to commence general boarding.  Please have your tickets ready.  Thank you.”

His apology would have to wait, as would his assurances that he did not blame her for their difficulties.

            Data stood and tugged with the hand Dae refused to relinquish.

 

            Alec parked and hurried into the terminal.  Stopping at a Departures board, he knew it was vital he choose carefully.  Thinking back on what few words he’d heard the Olivers speak, he recalled no noticeable accents, and concentrated his attention on flights headed to the Southwest.  He saw that two flights were leaving for Los Angeles in the next ten minutes.

            Data and Dae moved forward in the line of passengers.

            Alec started through the metal detector and set it off.

            Dae handed over her boarding pass.

            Alec flashed some official-looking identification at the attendant, muttered something about the FBI, and ran down the corridor.

            Data followed Dae toward the companionway.

            Alec inspected the first waiting area.

 

            Back at the hotel, Max pulled on the door to the conference room.  It opened without any alarm.  The chair was empty.  He went back to the penthouse to wait for word from Alec.

 

            They found their seats and fastened their seat belts.

            Five minutes passed.  Dae, in the window seat, relaxed and closed her eyes for a nap.

            A form stopped in the aisle beside the android.  He looked up, expecting a flight attendant.

            It was Alec.

            Pure luck had guided him—he had seen the back of Data’s head as they entered the companionway.  “Will you both come with me, please?” he said in a low voice.

            Data and Dae looked at each other and stood.  Alec indicated the android should lead, and followed with his arm around Dae, a gun shoved in her ribs.

 

* * *

 

            Sthal, Troi, and D’Sora visited Worf during the trip back to Maledin VIII.  “Is this when your ritual hunt will take place?” the Klingon asked, pleased to at last be well enough that Crusher let him move back to his quarters.  He silently counted the days since the wager.  “I may have an engagement of my own, and do not wish to cause a conflict.”  He grinned at Troi’s grimace.

            “No, Worf,” Sthal replied.  “Not until after the colony has transported.  The Reth wishes Threrr and me to be part of the colony, so there is time yet.  Will you be healed soon?”

            He waited for Troi, who said, “Dr. Crusher thinks so.  His health improves every day, though he’s not been released for duty.”  She sighed.  “Frankly, no offense, Worf, but I’m more worried about Brethal than about you.”

            When Sthal asked what she meant, she said, “The Reths have been able to protect Brethal this long because no one’s known they were there.  Now the Malèdri know, and we know, and soon, so will others.

            “The galaxy is full of opportunists.  Once the Reth’s powers become public, you’ll be targeted by species hoping to convince you to take their advice.  The Ferengi, for example, may offer to ‘protect’ Brethal against intruders in exchange for the Reth’s altering matter for profit.”

            “But she would never agree!” Sthal croaked in outrage.

            The empath nodded.  “Which means they may try coercion instead.”  She sighed again.  “In revealing herself, the Reth may unwittingly have begun the damage she was trying to avoid.”

            Worf, ever the tactician, planned a preemptive strike.  “Join the Federation,” he recommended.  “After applying for a joint membership for both planets, the Federation will be able to offer protection.  Even if your application is later denied, you will have months, or years, of contact with Federation representatives—transported by Starfleet vessels.

            “It may deter those _pahtk_ Ferengi, and any other interlopers, until the Malèdri and the Reth find additional ways to protect both worlds.”  He leaned back, pleased with his solution.

            “Worf, if you don’t mind,” Troi said, “I’ll present your idea to Captain Picard.”  She allowed herself to smile.  “I have a feeling it will appeal to him.”

            “I will accompany you, Deanna,” Sthal said after a mental communication with the Reth and the rest of her people.  Blinking in surprise at the images flooding her, she went on, “I am empowered to tender the application of the Malbrethai to him as the Federation’s representative.”

            “Malbrethai?” Troi asked.

            The Malèd nodded.  “That seems to be the name our people,” and by that phrase she included every sentient being on both planets, “have selected for our combined selves.”  She blinked again.  “How astonishing.”

 

            “I agree with Mr. Worf,” Picard told the group in the observation lounge.  “The Malbrethai have chosen to delay transport of their colony until after they make application for Federation membership.  Starfleet has dispatched the _Zapata_ to stand guard over the Maledin system until we return, in case the news somehow leaks out before then.”

            “So we’re going to Earth?” asked Riker.  At Picard’s nod, he grinned.  “Good.  For some reason, Brethal makes me homesick.  And who knows?” he went on.  “Maybe we’ll find Data.”

            “What makes you say that, Will?” Crusher asked, startled.

            The first officer had no idea, but since none of their inquiries had given them any news of Data, what could it hurt to look a little closer to home?

            “He’s right!”

            “Lieutenant D’Sora?” said the captain in an icy voice.

            “Sorry, sir.”  She took a deep breath.  “I meant…well, Q said there might be clues to Data’s whereabouts.”  She swallowed.  “Has anyone else noticed just how often Earth has been mentioned since Data disappeared?”

            Brethal’s flora, fauna, and climate were often called Earthlike, D’Sora pointed out, and Commander Riker specifically cited Alaska.  “He also suggested I access Data’s treatise on idiomatic English.”

            La Forge added, “And when we first arrived, the Malèdri were full of questions about Terran evolutionary patterns, and said they were similar to Maledin VIII’s.”

            “But that happened before Q’s visit,” Crusher protested, playing devil’s advocate.

            “True, Doctor,” Picard answered, “but Q didn’t say when we’d be given these ‘clues.’  And he particularly cautioned us to ignore nothing.  What could be less obvious than something which happened _before_ we knew of Q’s involvement?”

            A burst of applause greeted his words.  He started to comment about the breach of decorum when he noted none of his officers had moved.  “Q?  Are we right?”  The captain glanced around.  “Is Data on Earth?”

            “Plaudits and accolades, my dear friends!” came a resounding voice, and Q appeared directly over the captain’s head.  Picard scrambled up and Q settled into the chair, his feet on the table.  “Don’t you feel smart?”  His laugh rocked the ship.

            “Not particularly, Q,” drawled Crusher, “since Data’s still missing.”

            He glared at her.  “Hmm.  There is that.”  His face wore a veneer of encouragement, but none missed the contempt beneath.  “You haven’t gotten him back yet.”  He lunged to his feet, clapping his hands.  “But you did accomplish something.  I say again, plaudits and accolades!”

            “I wish he’d say something a little more helpful,” muttered La Forge to Troi.

            Q winked out and popped in beside the engineer.  “What’s the matter, La Forge?” he asked with exaggerated sympathy.  “Don’t you think you can find your mechanized compatriot?”

            “Yes, I do,” the engineer retorted.  “But that doesn’t mean I can’t wish for a definite direction to search.”

            “But you have that now,” Q reminded him.  “Or can’t you find Earth?”  The intruder vanished again, then reappeared in Picard’s chair.  “I advise you once again that time is running out.  _Au revior, mon capitaine_ , and _bonne chance!_   I still say you’re going to need it.”  On that dark note, Q blinked out and stayed out.

            Picard stiffened.  “Counselor, see if the Malbrethai delegation is aboard.  Lieutenant D’Sora, contact the _Zapata_ and report her position to Commander Riker.  As soon as she’s in sensor range of the Maledin system, Number One, set course to Earth.  Warp seven.”  Before they dispersed, he added, “Need I remind you that, Q being who and what he is, there is certain to be more to finding Commander Data than simply showing up at Earth and asking for him?  I want ideas and comments here at 0800 tomorrow.  Dismissed.”

 

* * *

 

            Data drove their captor’s car, Alec and his gun in back with Dae.

            Alec called Max for instructions, then directed the android to the back of the hotel.  They took a service entrance, Alec ready to shoot at the slightest hint of independent action on Data’s part, and went to the conference room Data had escaped scant hours before.

            Dishes and steaming covered platters stood on the table before Max, his gun next to his plate.  He finished pouring a third cup of coffee, looked up, and favored Dae with a slight smile.  “You’re just in time.  Please sit down, Mrs. Oliver.  No, my dear, across from me, if you please.  You, Data, on her other side.  Alec, you’ll serve?”  Max picked up his weapon and pointed it at Dae’s head, and Alec, Data noted, never blocked Max’s line of fire.  When the other three were served, Alec took up his post beside the door, keeping a clear line of sight to Dae.

            Their host picked up his fork.  “Please, go ahead, I imagine you’ve been too occupied to eat.  I think you’ll enjoy the smoked salmon, Mrs. Oliver.  I have it flown in from Scotland.”

            Dae glanced from Data to Max to Alec, realized she was starving, and took a bite.  “It’s delicious.”

            A significant glance at Data prompted the android to taste the salmon.  He might as well behave as much like a human as possible, he decided.  The less extraordinary Max thought him, the better the chance he would overlook something and let Data escape with Dae.

            It was a quiet meal, since Dae had no appetite for conversation and Max’s efforts met with silence from the android.  “Very well, let’s stop the game, shall we?” he asked at last.

            Dae put her fork down with a clatter and looked at Max.  “What are you going to do with us?” she demanded.  The betraying quiver in her voice made Max smile again.

            “To you, my dear, nothing.  Provided your husband cooperates.  To him…I don’t _plan_ to hurt him.  I just want to see what makes him tick.  To do that, I may need to take him apart, but if he gives me adequate directions I should be able to put him together again.”

            Her face was sallow in the fluorescent light.  “And if you can’t?  Does your professional curiosity justify Data’s murder?”

            Max shrugged.  “ _C’est la vie_ , my dear, or perhaps _c’est la guerre_ is more to the point, even if it’s a war of money and technology rather than bombs and soldiers.”  He stared into Data’s face and his expression lost all indifference.  Avarice filled him.  “Your word, Data, that you’ll not try to escape.  Otherwise I’ll be forced to have Alec demonstrate what noncompliance will cost your lovely wife.  Unless, Alec,” he said, “you think Xavier should demonstrate?”

            At Dae’s start he continued, “The doctors were quite mystified about his condition, but they couldn’t find anything wrong.  He should be back here by three.  And I think, Mrs. Oliver, that he would particularly enjoy seeing you again.”  Max’s ugly leer shook Dae to the core even as she stiffened her spine and curled her lip in disgust.

            Data said nothing for a moment, his intellect spurred to find a way to keep Dae safe and still protect himself.  Finally he came across an old custom common among human children.  Not exactly a strategy to Worf’s taste, he knew, but the Klingon would understand.

            The android threw himself into his role.  His fervent gaze met Dae’s anxious one as he lifted her hands to kiss each knuckle.  She felt his fingers move as he said, “Very well, Max.  If you release Dae, I will tell you all you wish to know.  It will require a great deal of time, though.”

            Her hands clenched.  “Data, no!  I can’t let you do it!”

            “Shh, Dae,” he replied.  “I have given my word.”  There was the same odd motion of his fingers, and Dae’s eyes widened, then blinked.  “Do you understand?” he asked her.

            “Yes,” she breathed, “I think so.  Please, Data, are you sure?”  He nodded and she leaned forward to kiss him, trembling, and whispered, “Be careful, sugar.  I’ll wait for you.”

            “It would be a waste of time, Dae, but I thank you for the sentiment.”  Disengaging himself from her grip, he glanced to Max.  “Is there anything else you require of me?”

            Max ignored Data to study the woman beside him.  “Is he trustworthy, Mrs. Oliver?”  She nodded, not trusting her voice, and her response convinced Max, who thought himself an excellent judge of character.  He and Data would leave for the lab.  If they reached it without incident, Max would have Alec take Dae to the airport.

“I trust you won’t make me use this?” Max asked Data as he pocketed his gun.  The android shook his head and asked if he could give Dae his waist pouch.  “Fine, fine.  I’ll call you from the lab, Alec.  Wait here with Mrs. Oliver.  No, check with the hospital; if Xavier is ready to be released, send a car for him, then drive Mrs. Oliver to the airport immediately and wait for my call.”  He smiled at Dae, who shivered again.  “No reason to tempt a recuperating man, is there?”

 

            Max drove northwest through the shimmering heat.  They traveled on U.S. 95 and the car, a Lamborghini Diablo VT, ate the desolate road at a hundred and forty miles an hour.  The highway skirted wildlife refuges, gunnery ranges and the Nevada Test Site.

            They soon entered the Amargosa Valley, beyond which lay the Amargosa Desert.  According to Data’s memorized road map, the area was virtually empty—a good place to hide.

            Sure enough, in the middle of the empty desert, Max turned due west on a road that barely rated the name.  A few minutes later he stopped at a gate in a thirty-foot fence capped with another foot of razor wire, all electrified.  No sign proclaimed it a ClairTech lab; if anything, it looked like a government installation.  Max slid a card through a reader and the gate rattled open.  Another card reader stood on the inside of the gate.

            He drove to the back of the building, gray concrete, low to the ground and sprouting antennae like a deformed beetle.  The few windows were sealed shut and wired for alarms.  His was only the third car in the capacious garage.

            Following Max’s directions, Data walked into the building proper.  His captor pointed to an elevator and said most of the facility was underground.  They went down five levels and Max showed Data into a sparsely equipped lab, all sterile white tile and gleaming stainless steel.

            “This is where we’ll do most of the work on you,” he said: one scientist to another.  “My staff is on their way from MIT.  They’ll have to bring in some equipment; this installation isn’t up and running yet.  Until then, we’ll talk here,” and he went through the lab to an incongruously plush office.  Cigar smoke and new leather fought fresh paint and the metallic smell of the lab.

            The first thing Max did, once he sat down, was phone Alec.  “Take her—oh, you’re there?  How’s Xavier?”  Data heard Alec describe his coworker’s eagerness to see Dae.  Max chuckled.  “He’ll just have to be disappointed.  No, you’ve earned some rest.  Thank you, Alec.”  He hung up.  “Is there anything you’d like, Data?”

            “A glass of water, if I may, and…may I avail myself of the…sanitary facilities?”  The android spoke as if embarrassed by necessity.  Max gave him an understanding look and nodded toward a door, then used an intercom to call an assistant as Data shut himself in.

            Compared to his current prospects, escaping the hotel had been easy.  Dae had to get away, before Max’s staff arrived, and so did he, or he would lose his chance.

And, quite possibly, his life.  But there was more at stake than that.

            Assuring the continuity of the future was his primary duty, outweighing even his sense of self-preservation.  He might not be duplicable by this era’s technology, but if Max’s examination of him led to changes in the direction of cybernetics research, who knew what might follow?

            Over and above the uniqueness of Data’s physical construction was the intricacy of his programming, and he knew Max could understand at least the basic parameters of Soong’s work.  With programming that sophisticated, even a crude box on wheels with one mechanized arm could perform subtle and complex tasks.  Impressively enough to spur research into presently unconsidered areas?  Probably.  Resources might be diverted from more productive avenues.

            Data’s Academy class in Historical Ethics taught that anyone who traveled to the past was bound by strictures as inviolate as the Prime Directive.  Time was not immutable, it was fluid and changeable, so under no circumstances was any action to be taken which might pollute the timeline.  It was the main reason time travel was so rarely authorized.

            If Max believed artificial intelligence and androids were possible, so might others.  Data imagined an Earth where funds went into cybernetics instead of the space program.  Interstellar travel might be delayed, even abandoned, in an effort to improve things at home with robots.  And if, as a result, Zephram Cochrane went into a field other than faster-than-light travel, first contact might never occur.  The whole course of galactic history would change.

            Listening to Max, Data silently vowed to forfeit his test, hide or lie inactive in a cave somewhere for four hundred years, before letting the man learn anything important.  Data decided he would talk, for hours if needed, and mix a little reality with liberal amounts of gibberish until Dae could get home.  Then, by whatever means, Data would escape.  And if escape was impossible—the android experienced a major disturbance in his thought processes.

            If all else failed, he would commit suicide.

            Max’s lab had its own generator, Data reasoned, because there was no sign of transmission lines above ground, and running underground lines from the nearest power source would cause a further, and even greater, depletion of Max’s funds.

And so Data would find the hypothetical generator and shove a high-voltage line into the port above his right ear.  Introducing the full capacity of the generator into his positronic matrix would fry every circuit and power coupling, depolarize every synaptic pathway, and scramble every program he had.  Permanently.

            It was a disquieting prospect at best.  He much preferred the idea of escape.

            His thoughts focusing, he completed the restroom ritual and went back to the office.

            “Feeling better, Data?” asked his host.  The android made an unseen gesture with his fingers as he sat and clasped his hands in his lap.  “Good.”  Max poured a glass of cold water from a carafe and passed it to him.  “Tell me about your ‘father.’”

 

* * *

 

            Halfway to Earth, and nothing had changed.

            D’Sora summarized Q’s remarks in a transmission to Starfleet Command and requested an immediate search for Data.  They had no better luck than the _Enterprise_.  This caused no heightened concern at first, because there were still places on Earth where communications were hard to maintain, and some communities kept ancient customs that shunned technology.

            There were many enclaves in the Sol system with which the Federation followed protocols similar to the Prime Directive: no one visited without advance permission, nor could visitors use unauthorized technology.  If Q gave Data amnesia and dropped him in an enclave of Amish, or Bedouin, or any other group who eschewed technology, he could be hard to find.

            Picard believed that “He’s on Earth” included the entire Terran system.  Even if Q gave them exact coordinates and promised to lead the Away Team, the captain refused to trust the wily entity who had abused his crew so many times.

            These dismal thoughts occupied him as he sat alone in Ten-Forward.  “Earl Grey, Captain, or something stronger?”  He glanced up into Guinan’s mysterious face.

            “Something stronger, I think, my friend,” he replied, “and an ear, if you have the time?”

            She returned in a moment, slid into the seat across the table and handed him a tumbler of green liquid over ice.  He sniffed it.  “Aldeberan whiskey?  I don’t plan to get drunk, you know.”

            “I know.  Seeing the captain drunk would be bad for morale, and that’s already shaky.”  Guinan gave him a little grin.  “But he doesn’t have to drink tea all the time.  Besides, showing that you can handle the hard stuff sets a good example.”  She watched him take a sip and roll the liquor around on his tongue.  “And you couldn’t get drunk on that little bit.  It’s the last I have.”

            He raised his brows.  “I shall take it upon myself to replenish your supply, in thanks for your good offices.”  He stared out into space and asked in a discreet voice, “Just how is morale?”

            “If the talk is any indication, everyone’s on edge.”  Guinan paused.  She had a special reason for asking her next question, though it felt like the wrong time for that particular circle to close.  “Is it true we’re going to Earth to look for Data?”

            Picard shot her a penetrating glance.  “Now that’s not something I’ve made public.  I suppose I should have known better.”  With all the transmissions to and from Earth, and Data’s name in half of them, word was bound to travel off the bridge.  “To answer your question, not exclusively.  Our primary mission is the Malbrethai application, but since Q—”

            “ _He’s_ involved?” Guinan interrupted.  The captain nodded.  “I thought I felt his influence in this, but I wasn’t sure.”  A deep breath later, she said, “Q said Data’s on Earth, then?”

            “Exactly.  And he didn’t tell us to make it easier, but the statement can’t be ignored.”  He sipped his whiskey, savoring its mellow bite.  “Next time you feel his presence, let me know.”

            “You think I’ve endangered Data,” she said in a flat voice, “by not telling you sooner.”

            He looked surprised.  “On the contrary, I think if you’d had anything worth telling me, you’d have done it.  Dealing with Q isn’t easy for any of us.  I can’t blame you for wanting to be sure before you spoke, it’s one of your most admirable qualities.”  He smiled at her, drained his glass and started to leave, but she followed him.  “As I have said, and will say again, I trust you implicitly.”  He grasped her shoulder for a second, a contact that said much because of its rarity.  “Thank you, and goodnight.  You’ll have that whiskey when we reach Earth.”

            Guinan watched him leave, then slipped into her office to record her every sensation of Q since Data vanished.  Not sure what purpose the record served, she returned to her duties.

 

            “Mr. Worf, it’s good to have you back!” Picard said with a pleased smile.  The Klingon thanked him and sat down in the chair La Forge held.  The captain’s mess glittered, decorated by Riker and Troi.  Crusher was there, to keep an eye on him as well as celebrate.

            Riker set a mug of chech’tluth beside the Klingon’s plate, heaped with many of his favorite foods.  No gagh, the counselor noted with relief.  The prospect of consuming any herself made the thought of watching anyone else do so intolerable.  “So, Worf,” the first officer grinned, “how are you enjoying the soft life?”  All of them already knew, from visits to his sickbed, but their taciturn friend could be unexpectedly funny.  As could Data, Riker recalled with a pang.

            Worf did, as a matter of fact, begin an amusing story about his convalescence, only to be interrupted as D’Sora hurried in.  She stopped in mid-apology when she saw her commanding officer.  “It’s good to see you up and about, sir!” she said.  She stuck out her hand to shake his, remembered her protocol, and started to let it drop.

            “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he replied in his gruff voice, and took her hand in a brief, warm clasp.  “I thought I should see if you have managed to replace me as Tactical Officer yet.”  He seemed stern, but she could tell he was only teasing.

            “No one could replace you, sir,” she replied, “least of all me.”

            “Your modesty becomes you,” he replied, “but I hear you acquit yourself well.  I am pleased to know my choice was justified.”  She blushed and backed toward the door.

            “Where are you going, Lieutenant?” asked La Forge, half standing.  She said she would eat in Ten-Forward, so the senior officers could enjoy Worf’s return.

            “Jenna,” the Klingon said, “Dr. Crusher has yet to release me for duty.  Get some dinner and sit down.  I am sure one of the on-duty officers would be happy to make it an order,” he added with a meaningful glance at La Forge.  Eyes sparkling, D’Sora filled her plate.


	19. Chapter 19

19

 

 

            Alec let Dae out at the curb and drove off.  An hour later, she was third in line at the ticket counter, her nervous eyes checking to be sure Alec had not come back.

            She thought about Data’s words, his concern that she follow his lead, and thought she understood—he wanted her gone, out of Max’s reach, and he would stall for time on her behalf.

            Dae recalled the naked greed in Max’s eyes and shuddered.  Would Data really let Max take him to pieces?  She stiffened.  No.  No, Data would wait until he believed her safe and then try to escape again.

            Second in line.  Just a few more minutes and she could get on a plane and forget this city and all the trouble it had caused her.  And she could forget the exasperatingly adorable Data.

            Like hell she could.

            She had to help him.  But what could she do, make herself up as a monster and scare Max to death?  More likely, get caught, Data’s work to get her out would be for nothing, and Max would let Xavier get even with her.  She felt sick at the memory of Xavier’s groping hands.

            Was she willing to risk that, or worse, on Data’s behalf?  How much more had he already risked for her?  She closed her eyes on her conflicted thoughts.

            And saw Data’s face in her mind.  That sweet face, at once more knowledgeable and more innocent than any she had ever seen.  The amber eyes that could look right into her heart and not even know it.  She could feel the touch of his lips, his hands on hers as he bid her good-bye.

            “Can I help you, ma’am?” the clerk said for the third time.

            Dae focused on him.  “Oh, sorry.  One to Las Vegas, please.”

            The clerk’s expression called her an idiot.  “You’re in Vegas.  What’s your destination?”

            She stood there as the slip in her words crystallized her duty.  Then she made an abrupt turn and left the counter, mumbling about having forgotten something.

            Now, how could she help Data, when anything she did could be wrong?  Dae was reluctant to jeopardize his work to cover their tracks at the motel, but she needed help.

            First, where was he?  An hour away from the city, give or take a little, but an hour away at what speed, in which direction?  And once she knew where to go, how to get there?  Not by cab, nor by bus—she had trouble seeing Max’s lab being on the bus route!  Rent a car?  She had money, hers and Data’s, and it should be enough—

            No, that left a trail, even for a cash rental.  Okay, buy a car?  Again, reputable purchases left trails, and buying a good car “under the table” would take more cash than she had.

            She cursed Data’s foresight in having her car couriered home.  Which gave her something else to think about, since neither she nor Data would be there to pay the courier.  Dae found a pay phone and told Kat the car had gone on the fritz and Data arranged for it to be driven home later.  But the car was on its way now and they were stuck a while longer, could Kat pay the driver?

            Kat’s agreement found one problem solved.  Unfortunately the bigger, more immediate problem was still alive and kicking, and Dae was out of ideas.  Alone, her odds of rescuing Data were infinitesimal.  _If only I could trust someone—_

            Of their own volition, her fingers punched in a new number and dropped in some more change, glad for once that she had never gotten a calling card or splurged on a cellular phone.  When the ring was answered by the voice she’d hoped to hear, she said, “This is Dae Oliver…can you pick me up?  I need help.”

 

            Data, according to his fabricated story, was the creation of an independent scientist named Stuart Oliver.  His brain was half digital, half analog, to mimic the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, and occupied a shielded cavity in his abdomen.

            His skeletal framework was made of a ceramic-aluminum alloy used in the space program, stronger than steel by a factor of six and resilient enough to let him move like a human.

            The skin covering his body was lab-cultured by Oliver in the same way doctors cultured skin for burn patients.  It was kept alive by biochemical fluid pumped by an artificial heart.  His circulatory system was semi-permeable conduit used for blood-vessel replacement.  This vascular network connected the skin to his biosynthetic muscle tissue, nourishing it at the same time.

            His eyes were fakes, orbs of transparent aluminum with photosensitive irises cloned from Oliver’s own eye tissue.  They hid minute stereoscopic cameras that sent signals to an image processor via fiberoptic cables.  His ears held ceramic bones and cultured-skin membranes, and specially designed processors that had been trained, over many arduous years, to interpret sound.

            He lacked the senses of smell or taste; all comments to the contrary were mere simulation, part of his programming to act like a human.

            Max, to use common parlance, was eating it up, and had done so for several hours.

            “What about emotions, Data?” Max wondered.  “Your affection for your wife, for example.  Real, or just a programmed response?”

            In light of their behavior together, Data had little choice.  “Some of each, Max,” he said at last.  “Based on my programming, the things I…feel are correlated to the appropriate human behavior.  But I do not know whether what I feel matches human emotions.”

            His captor nodded.  “Yes, I’ve thought that would be difficult.  But then, I’d thought hearing would be, too.  A true genius, your father.  It’s a shame he’s dead.”

            “Yes, it is.  I…miss him.”  There were questions Data never had a chance to ask, there on Terlina III.  First Soong studied him, tested him to see if the reality matched his long-ago vision.  Then, when it should have been his turn to ask questions, Lore arrived.  By the time Riker’s Away Team landed, Soong was near death, Lore was gone with the emotion chip that should have been Data’s, and Data had no time to spare for his dying father.

            The _Enterprise_ made it to Starbase 416 barely in time to save Willie Potts.  Afterward, Data asked permission to check on his father, and received it from a cautious Picard.  But Soong was dead, his body in a stasis chamber, and Data stayed only to set up a force field to protect his father’s home.  The android had planned to go back for his father’s records, hoping to find clues to his construction, and to the emotion chip.  But now, that would not be for some time.

            He looked up to find Max studying him.  “Bad memories?”

            Data shook his head.  “Just memories, Max.”

            The phone rang.  Max told Data to be quiet and turned his back to the android in supreme confidence.  It was Ceci, wondering about his dinner plans.  Max said he was in inspiration’s grip.  “The commissary is stocked, the microwaves work, Corwin and Líu are here and the MIT group arrives in two or three hours…yes, but I’ll miss your _gnocchi_.”  Max laughed.  “I love you, too.”

            He turned back to Data, chuckling at his wife’s concern.  “Now, where were we?  Oh, yes.  Tell me again how your father designed your auditory systems.”

            The android embellished his earlier remarks, but his mind was on the facts Max let slip:  only two others were in the installation.  And Data had two hours left to escape.

            Should he immobilize Max and the others, steal a car?  What about the things he and Max talked about?  They were fiction, but there was enough logic behind the fiction to ring true to an expert like Max.  The things Data hoped to avoid could still happen.

            The android’s memory inventoried the lab and found it held one or two things he could use.  Data hoped it would be enough.  What he would not give for one single tricorder!

            The plan built piece by piece and looked more and more promising.  Taking a car was out of the question, it would be too easy to trace.  Data would literally have to run for it.

            It was ten past eight by his internal chronometer.  Would it be full dark soon?  It should be, but nightfall in the desert could be deceptive, sometimes a leisurely transition, other times swift.  For his purposes, the latter would be best, if not quite so aesthetic.

            Now was as good a time as any.  Data stood up and announced, “I must leave now, Max.  I will not thank you for your hospitality this time.”  Max only sat and smiled.

            “You gave me your word not to try and escape, Data, don’t you remember?”  He came to Data’s side.  “I could still find your wife, you know, and let her pay for your misbehavior.”

            The android shook his head.  “No, Max.  She is safe from you now, and soon I will be as well.  I am sorry, but I must ask you to come into the lab.  There is something I must do.”  He saw the first glimmer of caution in Max’s eyes.

            Data put his hand on Max’s arm and pulled him inexorably toward the examining table.  Max fought back and Data nerve-pinched him, just enough to let him strap Max to the table.

            He wired the electroencephalograph to the oscilloscope and a computer monitor.  Rather than x-ray the brain, Data’s construct would map activity to locate Max’s short-term memory—and wipe it clean.  He would have to use some of his own components to turn a laser scalpel into a non-invasive probe, but he believed he could successfully disrupt the proper synaptic pathways.

            Data attached the electrodes to Max’s scalp and woke him.  He spoke to the older man for several minutes, plotted the activity patterns, and decided he was ready.

            “I am sorry, Max,” he said when he placed a blindfold over the recumbent man’s eyes.  “I wish I did not have to take these actions.  Unfortunately, you have left me no other choice.”

            The android unsealed his right forearm panel and removed a couple of redundant components, then reconfigured the laser scalpel.  After satisfying himself that it would work without damage to Max, he placed it against the man’s scalp.

            “Dae said you were trustworthy,” Max said, his voice desperate.  “What do you call this?”

            “I call it self-preservation, and perhaps much more than that.  And I told you no lies, even when I claimed I would not try to escape.”  Data activated the probe and interrupted the first synapse.  “However, I followed an old human custom.

            “All the time I talked to you, I had my fingers crossed.”

 

            Ninety painstaking minutes later, Max recalled nothing of Data’s being an android.  He knew they talked for a while, but the details were fuzzy.  Data returned the lab, and his components, to their prior states and helped the groggy Max to his chair.  When the man was settled, Data gave him another nerve pinch and was out the door when the phone rang.

            Data ran back to answer it in Max’s voice.  It was Líu, calling to say that the staff from MIT would arrive soon, and to ask if he wanted to share their meal.  “Fine, fine,” said Data-as-Max.  “No, you and Corwin go ahead.  I’m not really hungry yet.”  The unsuspecting woman hung up.  Data headed out.

            He entered the elevator and hit the button for ground level.  Data hoped the dining area was not on his route, since most of the walls between the elevator and the main door were glass.

            The doors slid open.  Data heard two sets of movements and dropped to the floor just as a woman who had to be Líu turned toward the elevator.

            She saw no one and turned away with a shrug.  Data heard her call to Corwin and sit down.  Relief sang through Data’s positronic subprocessor, but he still had to reach the door.  He inched lizard-like down the hallway and reached the door a few minutes later.  Corwin called out that dinner was ready.  Líu pushed back her chair and walked away.

            Data closed the front door silently behind him as he stepped into the warm Nevada night.  And then he turned and rattled the knob, in vain.  In his hurry to escape, he had left Max’s access card behind.  There was no way out of the compound now.

            Except over the fence.  It was less the landing that concerned him than getting over the top of thirty-one feet of electrified fence—there was nothing in sight that could boost him over.

            He would make his try for freedom at the gate since the road surface would hide his footprints.  He crouched and launched his body into the air.  At its highest, his leap left half his body below the level of the razor wire.  Data considered his problem, then looked up and blinked as he evaluated an approaching noise: the sound of many cars.

            The android had no choice.  He had to become a high jumper.  His eyes traveled to the vicious coil of steel atop the fence.  A very high jumper.  Data sighed and ran back to the building to maximize his momentum, turned and pounded toward the fence.  He reached what he calculated to be the optimal point and propelled himself up in the proper track-and-field form.

            Even though he knew he ran faster, jumped higher, than any human, he felt as if he drifted like a feather.  Data twisted a little to be sure his feet cleared the fence and planned his landing.

            His trailing arm touched the razor wire.  It slit the skin and sent current crackling through his neural nets.  Instead of landing on his feet, his body went rigid and he fell flat on his back across the road mere inches from the gate, showered with sparks.

            Diagnostics flashed signals from processor to processor.  No major damage was found and an automatic systems reset would set the network to rights.  The external membrane was no longer contiguous but that damage was minor, a nine-point-one-centimeter incisure along the distal section of the right brachial member.  The reset program initialized.

            Data sat up two minutes later.  It was very odd.  During the reset process, he thought he had heard—

            “Data, are you all right?”  A hand closed on his shoulder.  The android’s eyes widened considerably as he turned around.

            And saw Dae’s worried face.

 

* * *

 

            Starfleet Command conducted an extensive search for Data in the Sol system, trusting Q no more than Picard did.  But no search on any front gave a clue to the android’s whereabouts.

            Crusher released Worf for limited duty.  A peevish Troi agreed that this was enough to let Worf win the bet, if he chose to insist, but he felt he was not fully recovered since he used motor-assist bands when off duty.  The empath still hoped it took him half a minute more than a month and trusted his sense of honor to say the extra thirty seconds lost the bet.

            D’Sora’s schedule was revised so she could be on duty with Worf, to handle the more active requirements that might arise while he manned Tactical.  It meant she worked three double shifts in a week, but she did it gladly, except for the time it took away from La Forge.

            It also meant adjusting her sleep patterns, and she began having odd dreams that left her on edge.  The doctor prescribed a somnetic inducer; the captain, overhearing a discussion with Worf on the bridge, suggested his Aunt Adele’s steamed milk with nutmeg.  Troi counseled her in stress relief and relaxation techniques, and told her with a grin not to neglect her personal life.

            La Forge’s brand of therapy may not have been any more effective, but it was more fun than steamed milk.  And though it helped, D’Sora still woke disoriented, even frightened.  Q’s assurances, that Data was on Earth but in great danger, preyed on her mind.  As Worf resumed more of his duties, he encouraged her search for the android.

            She set up a private database in the computer, loaded it with everything they knew, ran every search she could think of, and came up blank, so she arranged with the proper UFP liaison for sanction to conduct searches in restricted territories.

 

* * *

 

            A black Mercedes sedan with darkened windows pulled up to the curb outside the terminal.  Dae, biting her lip, got in.  The sedan accelerated into traffic.

            “Now, my dear,” Ceci said in a light but curious voice, “perhaps you will tell me what kind of trouble you are in, and why I am the only one who can help you.”

            Dae talked for half an hour while Ceci drove around.  It took a while to get to the point; she was accusing this woman’s husband of kidnapping, after all.

She worked up to it by asking how Max’s business was going, and had he been acting like himself lately, especially today?

            Ceci thought.  Max was more introspective than usual.  He said nothing about the business, but then he rarely did.  Not that Ceci was disinterested, but much of the pure theory was over her head.  Max never made it to bed after the party, which was strange, and Xavier had been in the hospital, and Alec went to bed a little while ago looking like death warmed over.

            And Max had disappeared in Ceci’s Diablo.  The Benz was his, and he rarely took her car.  “Except when he’s upset and needs to think,” she murmured.  “Then he drives like hell into the desert and sits in his new lab.  Even when it was just a hole in the ground, he would sit and look at it.  As if it could solve all his problems.”

            Her voice slowed.  “There is something wrong.  Something he has not told me.”  She glanced at Dae’s pale face.  “And what has your charming Dana to do with Max’s trouble?”

            Dae plunged in.  “Dana’s a programmer and analyst, and he’s brilliant.  He and Max were talking about artificial intelligence.  Dana’s working on some very sophisticated programming and thinks he’s close to a breakthrough.  I know Max has done work in that direction, too, and if his business isn’t as healthy as it looks, if he thought Dana’s programs could get him out of a jam—”

            Ceci hit the brakes, throwing Dae against the chest belt.  “You think my husband would _steal_ your husband’s work?  Who the hell do you think you are!”

            “I’m sorry, and I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t know what else to think!  Is it like Max to hold a gun on someone?”

            The older woman started, then drove in silence into a mall parking structure.  “No,” she said at last.  “He taught me to shoot, and his first rule is, never point a gun at _anyone_ —unless you intend to kill.”  She faced Dae again.  “Max pointed a gun at you?”

            Dae told her what happened after Alec picked them up at the airport.  “And that’s why I called you,” she ended, fighting tears.  “I don’t know what’s going on, I only know a man who treated us like friends yesterday took my husband away at gunpoint today.  I have to find him, Ceci, I just have to.  He’s…special.”  She looked up into a pair of compassionate eyes.

            “We’ll go back to the penthouse,” Ceci stated over Dae’s very valid objections.  “Don’t worry, I’ll sneak you in, but I can only access Max’s records from his office there.  When I know what kind of trouble _my_ husband is in, perhaps I will know how to help yours.”

            Hours later she sat at Max’s desk, appalled.  Three of his companies were on the verge of ruin, two others not far behind.  Unless Max found a profitable new product or did some brutal downsizing, he stood to lose nearly fifteen billion dollars.  It wasn’t the money, Ceci told Dae, but the opportunities he would lose.

            “He is very proud, my husband,” she said.  “He epitomizes the American dream, having come from nothing to a position of power and respect.”  She chuckled wryly.  “Even the President calls him for advice now and then.  His pride keeps him from doing what he must.  That, and…even after all this time, all his accomplishments, he hungers, always, for that respect.”

            The dark eyes met Dae’s again, only now they held resolve and determination.  “We will get them both out of trouble, won’t we?”

           

            They talked, ate antipasto and linguini, avoided their problems for a time.  Until the last dish was put away, and Dae asked where Max was most likely to be.

            Ceci’s best theory was his new lab in the middle of the Amargosa Desert.  She laughed and said the name seemed pretentious, like it should belong to a star and not a stretch of sand and rock.  But it was private enough to suit Max, and there was one way to be sure he was there now.

            Dae held her breath as Ceci made the call.  When she hung up she said, “He is hiding something.”  Her face went blank as she tried to reconcile her Max with Dae’s story.  When she mentioned the pending arrival of the contingent from MIT, the younger woman groaned.

            “Do you know exactly where the lab is?” Dae asked.  “I’ll find a way to get out there somehow.  Maybe I can wait until the other scientists get there and sneak in.”

            “I’ll take you.”  Dae started to protest but Ceci waved her off.  “Save it, you’d never find it in the dark.  I just hope we can get in.  Max is so security-conscious, even I have no card for the gate.”  She drew herself up to her full five feet, three inches.  “Come, it’s getting late.”

            Luck was with them.  They reached the busy garage and managed to slip the Benz right past a scowling Xavier.  They reached the open desert minutes later and Ceci demonstrated her family driving skills, passing other cars as if they stood still.

            When they reached the lab near dusk, Dae started out of the car.  Ceci held her back, asking how she planned to get in, and how would she get herself and her charming husband away?

            Dae’s only real plan had been to get to where Data was, but she had no idea what to do next.  Ceci suggested they wait.  If he was as brilliant as Dae claimed, he would get past the gate.

            The older woman took Dae’s silence as agreement and parked several yards off the road in the shadow of some large boulders, opening the moonroof and windows for ventilation.  Dae curled up on the front seat and stared at the gate through the rear window.

            They talked a little, but fear of being heard made them stop.  Ceci nodded off.

            Dae felt chilly and rolled down her long sleeves.  After a while she lost track of time, watching the gate with such intensity she felt hypnotized.  When a shadow broke away, she thought she was seeing things.  Then it disappeared.

            It came back toward the gate, fast.  It had to be Data.  Did he plan to come _through_ the gate?  Dae held her breath.  No.  Not through.  _Over_.  Her jaw dropped as she watched him leap.

            A shower of sparks announced his contact with the fence.  Dae scrambled out of the car as he thudded to the asphalt, to kneel and shake him and call his name in a frenzied whisper.  She was weeping when he sat up.  “Data?  Are you all right?” she asked as she touched his shoulder.

            Data flinched and turned.  “Dae?  Why are you here?  I thought you had gone home.”

            Her soft chuckle had a wry sound.  “Yeah, well, I realized I couldn’t leave until I found you.  We’ve got to get out of here.”  Dae led him to the car.

            Getting in the back seat woke Ceci.  “Dana!  How did you get past the gate?”

            “It is a long story.”  He glanced from one to the other.  “What are you doing here?”

            “That, too, is a long story,” laughed Ceci.  She reached for the ignition.

            “No!” Data cautioned.  He nodded up the road.  “Several vehicles are on their way.  It would be advisable to wait until after they enter the compound.”

            They waited a few more minutes.  A caravan of cars and small panel trucks drove up to the gate, right past the car hidden in the shadows.  The first driver stuck a card in the reader.  The procession went through the gate and it clanged shut.  They pulled behind the building.  “You may start the car,” he told Ceci in a whisper, “but do not turn on the lights yet.”

            “The moon is bright, I’ll wait till we hit the main road, if I can.”  The engine turned over with a purr and she nosed the car back onto the road.

            Dae’s gaze roamed over Data, checking for injuries.  She saw some sand on his right sleeve, as well there might be considering his landing, started to brush it off, and gave a little gasp.

            His right forearm had a slice in it three and a half inches long.  “My God, you’re hurt!”

            He inspected the damage, pronounced it minor, and brought the edges together.  He expected it to seal itself.  It did not.  Dae retrieved Ceci’s first aid kit.  Hoping to keep his makeup as intact as possible, Data directed her to get out some alcohol swabs and a hand-cleansing wipe. 

            It seemed reasonable to assume that dirt impeded the sealing capabilities of the bioplast sheeting.  He gently pulled the gash open with his free hand and instructed her in a low voice to wipe the edges of the cut with a swab.  The slice still refused to close.  He sighed.  “I thought as much,” he whispered.  “I believe the makeup is the real culprit.  You will have to remove it.”

            She cleansed the area with the wipe, working outward until she had a good half-inch margin cleared all the way around.  Another wipe-down with a swab and she held her breath as he brought the edges of the wound together again.

            It sealed without a trace.  Unfortunately, he now had a bare golden patch on his arm, and his makeup was in her car.  Dae asked if a gauze bandage would help but Data said it would just increase the problem.  “Wait, I know,” she said in a pleased voice.  “I’ll swap shirts with you!  Well, don’t just sit there, sugar, off with it,” she ordered as she tugged the shirt free of her jeans.

            Data shrugged and cautiously pulled off his shirt.  Dae made sure his wig was still on straight, then yanked on the polo, offering as she did so to button his shirt and save the makeup on his hands.  He was patient as she went to work.

            There was an awkward pause.  “I’m…I’m glad to see you,” Dae whispered.

            “And I you,” he replied.  “Thank you for coming to my rescue.  Again.”  She lifted her arms and leaned toward him.  He touched her lips with his, carefully, to preserve his lip color.

            Ceci concentrated on her driving and caught only a little of the doings in the back seat.  The gleam of gold on Data’s bare chest and shoulders startled her—it seemed Dae had not been completely candid about Dana’s uniqueness—but she decided not to ask.  Still, Max was wrong to take advantage of the young man, and doing so at gunpoint was unconscionable.  She wanted to get these youngsters on their way, so she could devote her energies to her beloved Max.  Whatever was wrong, they would face it together.  They always had.

            “Dana,” she said, catching his eyes in the rear-view mirror, “how is Max?”

            “He is unharmed, Ceci,” replied the android.  “I was forced to—”

            She hushed him.  “As long as he is safe.  The less I know, the fewer lies I will have to tell.”  Traffic noises intruded.  “What will you do now?”

            “Go home,” Dae answered at once.  She tightened her arms around Data.  “But how do we get there?”  She told him her reasoning about obtaining a car, and he complimented her logic.

            “Nonetheless,” he said, “there must be some way of solving this dilemma.”

            A motorcycle roared down the white line past Ceci, and Dae grinned as an idea struck.  “Maybe there is, sugar, if Ceci will help us one more time.  How much do you have left in your wallet?  I never bothered to look.”

 

            An hour later, a powerful black motorcycle raced through the desert.  It carried two people in slick black helmets and leather jackets.  The shorter of the two drove; the other sat behind with foolhardy ease, hands barely touching the driver’s narrow waist.

            Ceci had paid for the bike with Data’s cash, wished them Godspeed, and told Data he was lucky to have Dae to worry about him.

 

            Talk was impossible, of course.  It left time to think their own thoughts, and both wound up pondering Ceci’s parting words.

            The android found himself intensely curious—and some other sensation, qualitatively related to his reactions when his friends on the _Enterprise_ seemed to forget he was anything other than human.  Dae’s actions were foolhardy from first to last.  She should have gone home when Max released her, yet she chose to put herself in jeopardy again.  To call Ceci, who might have taken Max’s part and warned him…the situation could have been hopeless.

            But Dae did it anyway.  He knew she understood the hazards, so why had she done it?  Was it a sense of duty, that having “saved” him in the alley somehow left her responsible for him?

            Or could it be that she cared for him as a person?  He blinked.  Yes, it could be argued that her behavior, even after their disagreement, showed she held him in some kind of esteem, perhaps still thought of him as a friend!  He would have to talk with her about it.

            Dae kept her eyes on the road, but her mind traveled its own miserable path.  Oh, sure, Data was really lucky to have her to worry about him.  But if she had only been able to park her hormones, she wouldn’t have needed to worry in the first place!  How lucky did that make him?

            Not very, she concluded with a sigh.  How do you make it up to someone when you nearly got him killed?

            These and other depressing thoughts occupied her more than the starlit desert sky, a picture she would have appreciated as romantic at any other time.

 

            A few hours later, they pulled up beside Dae’s car in her back yard.  Kat bounded from the house and threw her arms around Dae, then Data, chattering like the proverbial magpie.  “What a slick bike!” she enthused.  “Whose is it?”

            “Hmm?” said Dae.  “Oh, it’s Data’s, he’s been looking for some kind of transportation, you know.  He won so much money he decided to splurge.  So, what’s been happening here?”

            “Not much.  The cats are spoiled, Malta still has trouble with her hips in the morning but aspirin helps.  And she’s getting more exercise because she keeps going back and forth from the garage to check out the birds nesting in the eaves.  Oh, and there’s a cricket in your room.”

            “A cricket?” Dae asked with a tired smile.  “How’d a cricket get all the way in there?”

            “I don’t know, but it’s there, all right.  It must find its way out for food, then comes back to sing for me.  I think it’s living behind your bureau.”

            Data’s head went up but he said nothing.  Dae paid Kat for the courier’s bill while he inventoried the car and carried in the big suitcases.  Kat said, “Well, I’m outta here.  You guys doing anything on the Fourth?”

            “I’m not sure,” Dae replied.  “I think I need a vacation to rest up from my vacation!  I’ll let you know.  If I don’t see you, have fun and I’ll catch you Tuesday.  And thanks a lot.”

            “No problem, Dae.  ’Bye, Data,” Kat called, and hurried down to her car.

            Data immediately went to Dae’s bureau and removed his uniform from under her winter sweaters.  His communicator was chirping.

            The standard Starfleet communicator was powered by a sarium krellide battery rated for two weeks of normal use; a low beep or chirp signaled the need to recharge.  Data had estimated that a fresh battery, if not drained through use, might last as long as four months.  His communicator had been serviced eight days before Q’s appearance, hence its early depletion.

            “I need to recharge the battery powering my communicator,” he said as Dae came in.  “It generates an automatic signal which will allow my friends to find me.”  Not that they were likely to, but was it not prudent to prepare for all eventualities?  “Have you a recharging device, Dae?  Perhaps I can adapt it.”  She left the room without a word and returned with a battery charger.

            All she heard in his comments was concern that his friends might not find him.  Her anxiety came back in force, along with her guilt and embarrassment.  He could hardly wait to leave, it seemed, even after her apology.

So what was all that hand-holding at the airport, and the arm around her in front of Ceci? _Protective camouflage, dunce,_ she told herself, _like his makeup and wig.  My_ stupid _hormones._   She finished unloading the car and lined up his bags in the hall.

            “If there’s nothing else you need,” she said at the office door, “I’m going to bed.”

            He studied her face and nodded.  “I understand.  It has been a very strenuous day for you.  You would likely derive great benefit from a period of repose, Dae.  Sleep well.  I will take care of Malta and the cats.”  Data’s lips twitched into a half-smile before he turned back to his work.

            Her shoulders slumped at his calm dismissal and she went to her room, her heart thudding in her chest.  Behind her closed door, she took two more aspirin, then curled her body into a tight knot under the covers.  Silently she wept, and prayed for sleep.

 

            Max opened his eyes to an audience of twenty-seven concerned faces.  “Mfph?  What?  What’s the matter with all of you?”  His voice quavered, then strengthened.  He pushed himself up in his chair wondering what prompted him to take a nap.  The combination of Data’s makeshift synaptic probe and the nerve pinch caused disorientation and a migraine-like pain in his skull.

            “Mr. Sinclair?  How do you feel?” Corwin asked.  “When you didn’t come up to talk to the rest of the staff, we got worried.  We had a little trouble waking you.”

            Max yawned behind one hand, then rubbed hard on one side of his neck.  “Well.  I’m sorry to have been the cause of such concern.  I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you back?”

            Heads nodded around the room.  “I was talking to a remarkable young man…today?  No,” he hesitated, “no, maybe it was yesterday?”

            Corwin and Líu swapped a look.  “It must have been yesterday, sir,” offered Líu.  “You’ve been here most of the day.”

            There was a picture in Max’s mind, someone sitting across from him, a long conversation….  “It was yesterday, at a party I gave,” he said.  “I guess I planned to bring him to the lab but the plans fell through.  Anyway, he had some fascinating theories on AI.  I guess you could say I was inspired.”  His brow furrowed.  “Problem is, I can’t seem to remember any of it.”  He apologized with a look around the group.  “I’m sorry I dragged you here for nothing—”

            General protests rose.  They were glad to be out of the hot, sticky Northeast, MIT was dull in the summer, don’t give it another thought, sir.  “Well, then,” Max grinned, “if you’ll help an old man”—more protests—“a middle-aged man back to the infamous city of ‘Lost Wages,’ we’ll take a little break and start fresh Tuesday.  Maybe then—”

            Cheers drowned out the rest of his words.  Each of them thought Max had just been working too hard.  They filed outside chattering about the unexpected holiday treat.  “Naomi,” Max ordered, “with me.”  She smiled and slid behind the Diablo’s wheel.

            Naomi was Naomi Enderson.  She started in the steno pool at ClairTech soon after Max bought out his former employer, and got noticed when she had the gall to make a programming suggestion to Max.  The suggestion was impractical but impressed Max with her grasp of theory.

            Enderson then worked her way through every area of the company and now headed ClairTech’s hardware research-and-development division.  She was the one person Max trusted with those technical tasks which might seem less than savory if made public.  She was a very successful hacker who worked only at Max’s express order, and had never, ever, been caught.

            When they were on the road, the other vehicles behind like ducklings after a june bug, Max said, “Naomi, set up a database search.  Last name, Oliver, first name…damn.”  He tried to shake the fog from his memory.  “First name…Dana.  All possible variants.  Six feet tall, slim build.  White, no regional accent.  Brown hair, blue eyes.”

            “Yes, sir.”  No questions on why Max wanted the man found.  His wanting it was reason enough.  “If the standard sources fail, sir?  Do I check non-standard ones?”

            A heartbeat’s pause.  “Yes.  He has something I want, Naomi, and I want it badly.  Even if I don’t remember what the hell it is.”

 


	20. Chapter 20

20

 

 

            When he was sure Dae slept, Data put the recharger aside and booted up his computer.  What he had done at their motel in Las Vegas, he would do at their other motels, adjusting the computer records to show someone other than Dana Oliver had been a guest.

            Data became a hacker.  It was ridiculously easy for the man—the android, rather—who cracked the Romulan central information net almost single-handed.  One by one, the motels lost Dana and Dae Oliver and gained a variety of fictional guests.

            Then he accessed the S-net and set up a multileveled wall between himself and the outside world.  He thought about disappearing from the network, but he still had to do business and CompCon had become too well known to disappear.  As for his employment by ClairTech, that was under his company name, though he had used his alias in conversations with ClairTech employees.  So he would use another voice, another name, and Dana Oliver would become a former employee who had taken a Vegas vacation, hit it big, and never come back.

            He also verified that his winnings had been wired to his account.  On the outside chance that Max might use his influence to access the casino records and track him via his bank deposit, he hacked into both the casino and bank computers and changed the information in their files.

            He finished the last entry with a sense of satisfaction.  He had done all he could.  If Max found him, he would “cross that bridge when he came to it.”  He decided to withdraw his winnings in cash as soon as he could and set up accounts in other names.  Creating new personae in his mind, Data went back to work on the recharger, only to be interrupted by Q.

            “What are you doing, Data?” asked the alien.  His face appeared on the monitor in pseudo-three-D and contorted against the inside of the screen to watch Data’s hands.

            “I am attempting to adapt this device,” he replied, pointing a screwdriver at it, “to perform as an induction recharger.  The battery in my communicator requires power.”

            “Stupid waste of time.  The _Enterprise_ is too far away to hear you, in so many ways.”

            “Nonetheless, I must do this.  As a Starfleet officer—”

            “Starfleet, may I remind you, won’t be founded for two centuries.  How can you be an officer in an organization that hasn’t even been envisioned yet, let alone founded?”

            “One hundred sixty-six years, eight months, twenty-six days.”  Data continued his work.  “And while you are correct in a strictly temporal sense, I was an officer in that organization until ninety-nine days ago.  I act in accordance with the regulations I swore to uphold, and therefore must maintain my equipment in a state of readiness, regardless of the low probability of its use.”

            “What other things do you believe, Data, after three months among the savages?”  Q, tiring of his game, pulled his body through the screen and sat on the desk.  “Do you still think they’re good?  Even after what Dae did to you?”  His sneer was more pronounced than usual.

            “Dae is not responsible,” was his quick reply.  “She made a mistake whose outcome neither of us could have anticipated.”

            “What of _your_ recent activities, then?  You’re a common criminal!”  The alien relished every word.  “You’ve broken dozens of the laws of this time and place protecting yourself from the results of actions you don’t hold _her_ responsible for!”  Q laughed out loud at Data’s mild expression.

            The android, though, having researched current legal practice, knew in detail just how many laws he had broken.  And he would have had to do none of it, had Dae not engaged him in what should have been a private conversation.

            “But had I taken her to our suite for the discussion, or at least declined to give a detailed explanation in Max’s garden, he would never have overheard us.”  His voice was low.  “Because I also erred, the fault for the outcome is as much mine as hers.”

            Why had he not taken her from the party?  Her remarks provided the ideal opportunity, and then he could have pointed out her condition in complete privacy.  But the truth was, he had enjoyed the party, in his way, found its corporate politics, entertainment, and comestibles, quite intriguing.  The aesthetics of the rooms and garden, the music, Dae’s appearance—

            “What was that?” Q asked, his interest piqued.  “Swayed by a pretty face, Professor?”

            “No, Q.  But her appearance was, in fact, most aesthetic, especially taken in combination with the Greco-Roman statuary on display.  Besides,” Data said, “she seemed to be having a good time, and I have no wish to impede any friend’s enjoyment of a social situation.”

            “Oh, all right,” huffed Q.  “Stipulating for the moment that both you and your pretty”—Q made a nasty face—“friend made mistakes, you still haven’t answered my question.”

            On many Starfleet missions, Data observed, the local government would have considered some of his actions illegal.  While he acted under orders from Captain Picard or another senior officer on those occasions, the situations were not dissimilar: he was attempting to engage in the research the test required while maintaining his anonymity, as he would on any covert mission.

            Q’s expression soured.  “Hmmph.  But have you learned nothing in all this time?”

            “I have learned that humanity is exceptionally complex, and that questions of a philosophical nature have no easy answers.”

            “In other words,” the entity said at length, “you need more time to conduct your research.”  Data began to agree and Q rushed on, “Very well, you shall have it.  Never let it be said that Q was unwilling to allow his professor of the humanities all the time he needs to do a thorough job.”  With a laughing face and calculating eyes, he vanished.

            Data blinked and went back to modifying the recharger.

 

            Dae woke several hours after Q left.  Her sleep may have refreshed her physically, but her emotions were a mess.  Vile dreams had troubled her, one more so than the rest.

            She had been in a room, large and white like an operating room, filled floor to ceiling with blinking electronic equipment.  A single light glared down through a huge reflector.  The light fell on a long table.  On the table lay Data.  In pieces.

            Foot after foot of cable and conduit spilled from his headless torso.  The legs she had admired lay foot to thigh beside his arms.  People in lab coats made notes on clipboards.

            Across the room, perched on a shelf, was Data’s head.  It stared at her, bewildered, and the lips that had kissed hers parted.  “Why, Dae?  Why did you betray me?”

            Beside the shelf stood Max, rubbing his hands like a mad scientist in a bad movie.  “Thank you for your help, dear girl!  I can now embark on a grand new era in scientific exploration.  You may leave.  Xavier will see you home.”  Dae’s eyes, glued to Data’s, saw the light go out of them.  Xavier grabbed her, laughing as she screamed—which she did, in her dream, for a very long time.

            She got up and dressed, fast, needing to see if Data was safe, and she stumbled to the door of the office.  He looked up and raised his eyebrows.  “Are you all right, Dae?” he asked.

            Dae nodded in relief.  She almost smiled, then she saw he was still working on the recharger.  Her face changed.  “Will it work?” she asked in a monotone.

            He laid the screwdriver down, put the communicator in the recharger and pressed the rocker switch.  The chirping stopped.  “It seems to be functioning properly.”  He looked pleased.

            She had to get out of the house.  Her eyes fell on the garment bags.  “I think I’ll take my dress to the cleaner’s,” she announced.  “Do you want me see if they can salvage your tux?”

            “Thank you, I would appreciate that.  Shall I begin the laundry while you are out?”

            “Sure.  Go ahead and start your stuff.  I’ll do mine later.”  He gave her a confused glance.  Since the day after his arrival, when he had proved himself capable of doing laundry, they usually traded off that duty, washing whatever needed it without regard for ownership.

            _Perhaps,_ he thought as she gathered the garment bags _, her embarrassment over her earlier…importunities has extended itself to other areas._   He almost questioned her about it, but instead said, “As you wish, Dae.”  She drove to the cleaner’s and he went back to work.

 

            By the time she started home, Dae had convinced herself that Data was eager to leave.  If they were friends before, they weren’t now, not from the way he talked about wanting those other friends to be able to find him.  So she decided to make it easy for him.

            She would be polite but not overly friendly, stay out of his way.  No more handholding, hugs or kisses, and if he chose to wait for his friends elsewhere, she would accede with grace.  She would never ask him to move, but he would never have reason to think himself put upon.

            Data noticed how quiet she was when she returned.  He offered again to do her laundry with his.  She declined.  Instead of joining him in the office to do character sketches as she usually did, she read in the living room.  They ate in a silence broken only by Data’s comments about his clients.  He offered to do the shopping, or to go with her, both of which he had done often.  She declined.  He asked if she wished to know what had happened with Max.  Stricken, she declined.

            And when she went to bed, she did not kiss him goodnight.

            More of the same the next day, and the next, and the next.  Data wished she would tell him what was wrong; it was plain she was distressed, yet his every conversational gambit got only a solemn shake of her head.  She smiled when he pointed out the nests under the eaves, but when the birds started to sing, she lost her smile and went back inside.  Data had no way to know that their chirps reminded her of his communicator, and of his expressed wish to leave.

            A wall of silence grew between them, higher and wider each day.  She hated it but thought it was what he wanted.  Data, knowing she had shut him out, began to retreat too, and soon spoke only to borrow her car when he needed a piece of equipment too large or delicate to transport by motorcycle.  She obviously wanted nothing to do with him, and he had no idea why.  He had never known he could miss someone who was still there, but now, lonelier than he had ever been, he learned to live with that confusing paradox.

            It was a very pointed lesson in how lack of communication could kill a relationship, but Data wished the lesson were not quite so personal.

 

* * *

 

            The ship reached Earth three weeks after Data disappeared.  Picard and Troi expedited the formal Malbrethai application for Federation admission and told them about their options in case the application was denied.  Formal diplomatic relations, treaties, and trade agreements could safeguard Maledin VIII and Brethal from the incursions they all feared.

            Riker took charge of the search for Data.  He beamed down with Worf and D’Sora soon after planetfall to meet Commander Boregar Renolds, the Starfleet liaison to the UFP’s Agency for the Maintenance of Cultural Integrity.  The liaison officer was an unusual mix of ancestries.  Pale red-blond hair topped his wiry frame, and his skin had a faint bluish cast that made his deep-set gray eyes look like polished pewter beneath slightly upswept brows.

            Renolds slowly unfolded from behind his desk to shake Riker’s hand and nod to the other two.  He accessed Starfleet Intelligence as they sat down, but there was no news, so he started tapping his console and filled the _Enterprise_ officers in on the search requests.

            The NeoLuddites refused to let anyone enter their enclave.  It had taken all Renolds’ persuasive skills just to get them to agree to notify Starfleet if any one of them found Data, instead of destroying “the infernal machine” at once.

            The Bedouin reported nothing unusual and granted permission for a quest, if it was performed according to their customs.  “Which means what, sir?” asked D’Sora.

            “Camels and tents, Lieutenant.”  Renolds grimaced.  “The Sahara’s not very pleasant this time of year.  And the weather satellites have noted several major sandstorms in the last week.”

            D’Sora said, “I thought the weather net controlled sandstorms?”

            “Normally, it does,” Renolds replied, “but the force field that assures their status as a Traditional Enclave also fends off the weather control system.  Apparently they felt their culture would suffer if they couldn’t fight their way through the occasional sandstorm as their ancestors did.”  He gave them an oddly mocking look.  “I think their ancestors would have jumped at the chance to do away with sandstorms, but I’m only a cultural anthropologist.”

            “If Data is in the Bedouin Enclave,” said Riker to his officers, “I just hope he’s managed to find shelter—sturdy as he is, I don’t think all that sand’s going to help his circuitry.”

            Renolds cocked one brow and gazed at the others for a long moment.  “You know, I must say I’ve been a little curious,” he began.  “All this fuss over a piece of equipment—”

            “Lieutenant Commander Data is not a piece of equipment, Commander,” Riker told him.  “He’s a valued member of our crew, a good friend, and plays a mean hand of poker.”

            The eyebrow ascended further.  “Really?  I had no idea officers aboard ship felt so strongly about their computers.”

            Worf growled at the slight, and D’Sora was shocked.  “Commander Renolds,” said Riker, “I suggest you familiarize yourself with the record of our missing officer.  Data may have a positronic brain instead of gray matter, he may be biomechanical instead of biological, but no _computer_ was ever decorated for gallantry.  Data was awarded the Medal of Honor _with_ clusters, among others, including a special commendation for his actions during the Klingon civil war,” and Riker stood to lean forward on Renolds’ desk, forcing the other man to look up, “and he’s saved my life, and the lives of everyone on the _Enterprise_ , more times than I can count.

            “And if that’s not enough to convince you he’s a man worth finding, I suggest you also check the JAG Office files for a hearing on stardate 42527, in which Data was acknowledged a sentient being, fully entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to any other Federation citizen.”  With that he took his seat, while Renolds stared for the longest two minutes of his life.

            “My apologies, Commander Riker, Lieutenants,” he said at last.  “I wasn’t fully cognizant of the facts.”  He paused as the JAG file appeared on his screen.  “Yes, rather offensively in the dark,” he murmured.  “My sincere apologies.”

            Renolds returned to business posthaste.  “Now, where were we?  Ah, yes, the Bedouin.”  He checked his console again.  “Permit to enter, special conditions…right.  No technology more complex than a compass or sextant.”

            “I wonder if there’s enough magnetically conductive metal in Data to affect a compass needle?” D’Sora wondered, only half joking.

            “Yes, quite,” was all Renolds said.  He wanted to get this over with.  That Riker might look very hail-fellow-well-met, but he was certainly…emphatic.  “Now, as to the others—”

            The Reformed Cathars and the Amish and Mennonite Enclaves each allowed searches and would sanction the use of hand-held sensors, nothing more.  The New Oneida Communities and the Native American Tribal Unions advised that no one out of the ordinary had been seen but welcomed the searchers nonetheless.  “It is more than the others granted us,” said Worf in disgust.  “I will thank the NOC and NATU personally, then arrange security details to begin our investigations.”  Riker collected the necessary permits and thanked Renolds for his help.

 

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

21

 

 

            The rest of July and on into August, they shared quarters but not lives.  Dae went back to work, such long hours that they hardly saw each other except on weekends, and those were quiet as the grave.  Data went on a few dates, but on a friends-only basis.

            And much to his surprise, he found he missed Dae’s touch.  He was used to her sensory input on an intellectual level, certainly; from his past experiences, he anticipated nothing else.  But he also missed the physical interactions of their relationship, and this intrigued him.

            In his own time, he never knew the kind of consistent physical contact that was the norm in Dae’s world.  His friends might touch his shoulder, take his hand or arm for a moment, but this era used touch as a method of communication far more often than his Starfleet milieu encouraged.

            That having become used to it, he should miss its presence, was reasonable.  That he should become used to tactile sensations in the same way as intellectual stimulus led him to a lengthy self-analysis that only confirmed what he knew.  He missed the stimulus of Dae’s hand in his, their arms around each other, even their kisses.

            Data had no chance to tell Dae, who avoided all but the most innocuous conversation.

            One night he heard her accept an invitation to an unofficial high-school reunion on the second Saturday of August.  While he wished they could resume their relationship as it had been, at least anticipating the gathering brought her to a semblance of her former self.

            Dae got home from work near six on party night and parked downstairs.  She thanked him for feeding the zoo, sounding more like herself than she had in weeks.  Data hoped this would be the catalyst their friendship needed to recuperate, but she quickly disappeared into her room.

            She came out forty-five minutes later.  He sat in the living room scratching Cin’s ears and hoping to tell her he wished to resume their former relationship.  She acted pleased to see him, twirled in her outfit, and asked, “So, what do you think?”

            He opened his mouth, then paused.  She did not look like herself.

            Her hair, teased and sprayed, did not flatter her.  Her makeup was too intense.  The earrings were excessive.  Her dress, though black, was too low-cut, too short, and too tight, and stiletto heels put her at distinct risk of injury.  Data could overlook one or two divergences from her normal dress, but taken all together, she looked like a type of woman he knew she was not.  Rather than answer, he asked, “Do you wish an honest appraisal of your ensemble?”

            Her face shut down at once and she got a haughty look in her eyes.  “No,” she said, and her breezy tone sounded forced.  “No, I don’t think I do.  Have a nice evening.”  Then she turned and said, with the breeze turned to ice, “Don’t wait up.”  He heard the swift click of her heels on the marble steps, and her car sped away with more than her usual acceleration.

            “There are times,” he said to the cats, who paid no attention, “when I wish I could lie.  This would have been a perfect opportunity.”  He thought about removing his makeup but changed his mind.  He normally did so only after the household settled in for the night.  Despite Dae’s parting shot, he would not revise his habits tonight.  He sighed and went back to the office.

 

            Dae drove in a fury, fuming over Data’s question.  _Who the hell does he think he is?  Mr. Android Blackwell with his own worst dressed list?  The gall!  Hardly talks to me for weeks_ —she conveniently forgot that she discouraged him any time he tried— _then_ insults _me?_

            The trouble was, she knew deep down he was right.  If she examined her feelings she would find that, because she missed Data’s friendship as much as he missed hers, her childhood insecurities were far closer to the surface than usual and she was trying to much too hard to compensate.

            The part of her that would have seen that truth would also have told her she was dressed like a two-bit hooker with pretensions to style, and vowed never to dress this way again.

            Seething on several levels, she arrived at the country club in the hills in a rotten frame of mind.  To compound her mistake, she went straight to the bar and got a double margarita.

            Things went well despite her mood.  Dae told entertaining stories about making famous people look like aliens from outer space.  Dinner was real food instead of the expected “rubber chicken,” and dessert was some wonderful concoction that reminded Dae of the truffles in the honeymoon suite.

            That thought came close to shattering her hard-won composure, so she forced it away.  Then hands covered her eyes and a voice whispered in her ear, “Guess who?”

            She began to smile.  “Napoleon?”  Chuckling.  “Elizabeth II?”  Roars of laughter.  “Then it must be Kee!”  She pulled the hands away, saw his charming grin, and then he kissed her.

            Kee sat beside her, even more handsome than the last time she saw him.  “How are you, Dae?” he asked, and gave her a complimentary visual up-and-down.  “You look terrific!”

            The grapevine connecting the class had picked up the news when they started dating, so the rest of the evening was a foregone conclusion to everyone else.  Dae and Kee danced, and drank, and danced some more.  They visited, and danced, and Dae, though determined not to overdo the alcohol, did so anyway.  She and Kee were inseparable.

            Kee left her long enough to request a song, the kind that was more an excuse to neck than dance, and when he kissed her again, Dae gave him her wholehearted response.  The song over, they strolled out onto a large balcony, deep in shadow with a lovely view of the city lights.

            They leaned against the rail to gaze out over the valley.  Kee put his arm around her.  “I’ve missed you, honey,” he said with a sad smile.  “You’ve changed.”

            “Who, me?”  She spoke without facing him, staring at the cityscape instead.  “I’m the same person I was when we broke up.  And if you wanted to talk, you knew where to find me.”  She felt a melancholy ache, missed him even as she knew ending things had been right.

            “I know,” he admitted.  “I got scared, things were so lousy at the end….”  Kee’s voice trailed off as he caressed her face with the back of his right hand, the one wearing the onyx ring his proud parents had gotten for him when he made the arson squad.  “I never wanted it to end like that.”  He waited a moment, to see if she objected, then kissed her with more passion.  She gave as good as she got.  “Could we have a second chance?” he whispered.

            “I don’t know,” she said, “it was so long ago and it got so ugly.”  He devoted himself to convincing her.  “Stop it, I can’t think,” Dae begged after a while.  Her head was spinning, from liquor and nostalgia and the pain of Data’s rejection, and she wanted to wipe away that pain.  “Stop, stop…” she said again, almost a whimper, and then his mouth was on hers and she was back to the time when their bodies said all their words could not.

            “Say yes, please say yes,” Kee begged, a little sad, still kissing her, holding her tightly but so tenderly.  “Please say we can try.”  More kisses, too torrid for her to resist.  “Please, Dae….”

            “Yes,” she agreed in a breath, losing all will to refuse, wanting so much to feel cared for again, and in the back of her mind a calm, reasonable voice said, _This is a_ tremendous _mistake._

 

            He lived in the South Bay.  Her place was closer.  Kee walked her to her car.  “You okay to drive?” he asked.  She nodded—her heart pounded too hard to speak.  “I’ll get there as fast as I can.  Okay?”

            She nodded again, then gasped, “Oh, my gosh, I almost forgot!  My roommate’ll be there.  Maybe we should go to your place after all.”

            “Will she mind?  I don’t want to wait the extra hour,” said Kee with a wicked smile.

            “I don’t know.  And it isn’t ‘she,’ it’s ‘he.’”

            That brought his incursions on her lips to a dead halt.  “He?  Where does he sleep?”

            Dae’s laugh was shaky.  “Sometimes I’m not sure he does.  The sleeper sofa.”

            “I’m willing to risk it if you are, sweetheart,” he said.  She smiled.  “Then see you soon.”

 

            Data looked up at the sound of a car pulling up.  Not Dae’s, a different one, but the driver was getting out and walking up the steps.  He heard Dae’s car drive into the back yard moments later.  Data turned on the porch light as he opened the front door.

            “Well, here I am,” said the man thus revealed, but when he realized he was not facing Dae through the screen door, he got flustered.

            “That would appear to be the case, sir,” said the android, listening as Dae fumbled with the back door and rushed in.  She stopped short when she saw them.

            Her blush of embarrassment was replaced by her earlier hauteur.  “Are you going to open the door, _Dana_ , or just stand there?”

            He opened the screen door without a word and looked at Dae, one brow raised.  “Kehoe Manolana, Dana Oliver,” she responded to the query as he locked the door again.

            “How do you do, Mr. Manolana?” Data said as they shook hands.  He returned the bigger man’s appraising glance, felt the handshake become a test of strength.  It said Kee had to constantly prove himself, and would not like being bested.  Data discreetly held his own.

            “I hope you had a pleasant time at the party, Dae.”  She smiled.  The smile reminded him of her expression at Max’s party, and his olfactory subprocessors picked up very high levels of pheromones, female _and_ male.  “I am glad.  Goodnight, Dae.  Good evening, Mr. Manolana.”  The android beat a hasty but dignified retreat and closed the office door behind him.

            Kee and Dae met in a consuming kiss.  Kee chuckled.  “And I was worried!”

            “About what?” she whispered.

            “About your roomie.  When you said it was a guy, I was afraid you had something going on with him.  Now I know better.  ‘Hello, Mr. Manolana.  Good evening, Mr. Manolana,’” Kee mimicked in a whining voice nothing at all like Data’s.  “What a wimp!”

            Dae frowned.  “Stop that.  He might hear you.”

            Kee gave her a look of total disbelief.  “What do you care?  He’s your roommate, that’s all.  Come here,” he ended, pulling her in for more nuzzling, missing the frown.

            “Yes, he is my roommate, and I don’t care to have him insulted.”

            He heard the protectiveness in her voice and shrugged.  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.  Consider this my apology.”  He picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed for her room.

            She giggled, “Put me down!  I’m getting dizzy!  You’ll be sorry if I lose my dinner!”

            “You wouldn’t dare,” he ordered, and laughed as she struggled.  He managed to find the doorknob and get her door open and shut before any of the cats joined them.  She demanded again that he put her down, and this time he obeyed, dropping her onto the bed.

            Dae stopped laughing.  She looked up at him and opened her arms.  He slung his jacket over the bedpost.

 

            Data sat at the keyboard wearing a pair of stereo headphones.  It was useless, of course.  His hearing was so sensitive that, even with the key clicks and the music turned up and two closed doors between him and them, he heard even the smallest sound.

            For a while, he heard laughing and giggling, some intimate conversation, and he resolutely turned his mind to his work.  But when Dae made a soft cry, he was at her door in a heartbeat.  Then Dae cried out again, and so did Kee, and Data, as he realized what those sounds meant, went back to the office, shut the door—and turned his auditory subprocessors off.

            He turned them back on every hour, but on hearing anything from the bedroom, he turned them off again.

 

            The Sunday paper arrived around six-thirty.  Data reactivated his “ears,” heard only the breathing of sleep, and retrieved it.  He stood in momentary indecision, then took the rental ads into the kitchen.  The night’s events made him understand that, if Dae was going to resume her relationship with Kee, Data had no wish to witness it.

            He tried to analyze his discomfort.  He had heard many private things during his life, including the same kinds of sounds as last night’s, from many sources.  Academy cadets’ quarters were not fully soundproof, nor were starship living areas, as there might be times when the only way to summon aid was a loud shout.  So Data, in the same vein as the Japanese saying that nakedness might be seen but was never noticed, had learned not to notice all of what he heard.

            So why did last night bother him?  It was less the actual sounds, he admitted, than the circumstances.  He liked Dae, and respected her, but she had cut him out of her life, and Kee he knew as well as he wished.  Compared with the open-minded response he had gotten from Dae’s other friends, Kee’s challenge was off-putting in a way Data could not define.  The facts made him unwilling to eavesdrop on them, even by accident, and certainly not on a regular basis.

            The android sat at the kitchen table and sped through the ads.  He found a number of prospects and decided to tour the areas before setting up interviews.  To use his noisy motorcycle so early might be rude, so he would wait until Dae woke and ask to borrow her car.

            There was very quiet movement in her room, probably Dae, since Kee did not seem to him the type to move quietly if he had a choice.  This surprising judgment occupied him until he heard the shower.  He would feed the animals and if Dae’s ablutions ended with no resumption of last night’s activities, he would make his request, and they could have their privacy when he left.

            He was outside with Malta when the shower stopped.  Data hurried back inside and counted the minutes until she might be dressed.

            It seemed the optimal solution.  Why, then, was he so reluctant to approach her door and raise his hand to knock?  Nevertheless, he did, three light but brisk taps.

 

            Dae’s eyes opened at last.  It was hard work—they felt weighted, gummy, and she realized she had gone to bed with her makeup on, including twice her normal application of mascara.  She yawned, frowning at her blurred vision and the foul taste in her mouth.  _I did it again,_ she sighed as wisps of memory returned.  _Twice in two months. Yuck.  What a record._

            Her head felt heavy and her stomach flip-flopped like a dying trout.  She lay on her side facing the bathroom, its cool black-and-white tiles beckoning to her.  She started to roll out from under the covers and stopped in shock as a man snored at her back.

            She closed her eyes and hazy pictures formed of the reunion.  Renewing friendships, seeing Kee again, dancing and staring at the city and necking and— _Oh, no._   Eyes wide in spite of the gluey mascara, Dae listened.  Another snore, with a peculiar little whiffle.  Just like Kee.  Her eyelids drooped in dismay.  _I don’t believe it._   Another whiffle told her she had better believe it.

            Dae inched from under the sheets, not daring to breath, just slid out with her hands on the floor as leverage until she got her feet clear.  She turned her head enough to see the clothes scattered at the foot of the bed, winced, and crawled into the bathroom.  The door shut with a tiny click that set her brain pounding.

            She felt for her robe, tugged till it fell off the hook and wrapped it around her, shuddering.  Her reflection stared back from the mirror on the door and she cringed at the sight.

            Her hair was flat on one side and stuck out in stiff little spikes on the other.  No lipstick except traces smeared around her mouth.  Eye shadow smudged over her brows.  Mascara clumped on her lashes, streaked beneath her eyes— _I look like a raccoon.  No, I don’t, I look…debauched.  Come to think of it, I_ feel _debauched.  And I don’t much like it._

_Well?_ her reflection seemed to ask. _Kee gave you what you wanted.  Sex, but not love._

_But I didn’t want it from_ him _!_

_No?  Then why did you do it?_

_I…I don’t know.  I was lonely._

_Oh, really.  Who were you lonely for, Kee?_

            Tears found their way through the ruined mascara.  _No.  I was lonely for Data._

_Oh._ I _understand.  You’re lonely for a friend, so you go to bed with someone you vowed you’d never let near you again._   Her head bowed and she sobbed without a sound.  _You really_ are _a fool, aren’t you?_ Her mental voice silenced itself, but the damage was done.

            She cried while she removed the wreckage of her makeup, brushed the alcoholic film from her teeth.  She showered, trying to wash away not just her hangover but the memory of Kee’s touch.  Yes, she had wanted it then, but not now.  Not ever again.

            Dae was a very tactile person, one whose sense of touch held great sway over her moods, even influenced her sense of self.  As Data was used to her touch, so she had become used to his.  Her main motivation for sleeping with Kee, she realized, was not sexual; instead, she was literally hungering to be touched.  And what had she gained?  Her body was rigid, her mind foggy, her emotions in knots, and the steaming water didn’t help a bit.

            Kee snored again as she stepped out of the shower and put on her robe.  Some things never changed; Kee always did sleep like a log after he drank.  It bothered her when they lived together, but today she was grateful.  Dae opened the bathroom door, then paused as he whiffled and curled up in the middle of the bed.  She went to her closet and pulled the door shut.

            She decided to put on the ugliest things she owned, a pair of baggy green capris and a ratty smock—an old housecoat of Minnie’s that Dae wore when she sculpted or painted.  Once black with a garish tropical print, it was faded to a dingy asphalt and the birds and flowers looked like weird fluorescent fungi.  The inevitable stains of clay and oil paints added the pièce de résistance.  It bagged, it sagged, it frayed at the edges—its only good points were its otherwise sturdy construction and its roomy pockets, good for holding sculpting tools and extra brushes.

            Even clean, it was the most repellent of garments.  She snapped it up to the neck and looked in the closet mirror.  Her bloodshot eyes were rimmed in red from her crying, and the smock leached even more color from her pale face.  She looked, in a word, frightful, and smiled.

            Just then Data tapped on her door.  She tied her hair back, eased past the closet door to open the other a crack.  “I am sorry to disturb you so early,” he said, even more diffident than usual, “but I was hoping to borrow your car.  I have a few…things to do.”  She ignored the pause, only smiled and retrieved her key for him.  “Thank you, Dae.”

            “Have fun, Data,” she answered.  She sounded as if she meant it, too, which brought a tiny smile as he walked out.  Dae leaned her forehead against the closed door.  Minutes later, Data was gone.

            “Good,” said a complacent voice behind her.  “Some nerve he’s got, waking you up this early on Sunday morning.”

            “He didn’t wake me,” she replied without turning.

            Kee piled a couple of pillows behind him.  He yawned, stretched, and made it known that he was very pleased about last night.  Then he gave her a good look.  “What in hell are you wearing?”  How he could have missed it for even a second was a more pertinent question.

            Dae gritted her teeth and thanked him for the compliment.

            “You know what I mean.  Come here,” and, grinning, he patted the mattress beside him, “let me help you out of that.”  She really wanted him last night, he thought, and now he wanted to return the favor.  Maybe that talk about starting over had been more than a line after all.

            “I don’t think so.”  She returned to the bed but sat well out of reach at its foot.  Calm and rational, she told him last night had been a mistake, and it was not going to be repeated.

            Kee was stunned.  “What do you mean, a mistake?  You wanted it as much as I did!”

            She sighed.  “Yes, I know.  But last night was last night.”  Her expression was troubled as she searched for words.  “You said I’d changed.  I thought you were wrong, but you were right.

            “I never wanted one-night stands.  That’s all we ended up with, though, night after night.  It was…safe, but not much else.  Last night was just another of our one-night stands.  I _thought_ I wanted it, but what I really wanted,” she said with a wry twist of a smile, “had nothing to do with you at all.”

            “What do you mean?  You were with me all the way, every single second.”  He held out his hand to her and smiled with all the charm he possessed.  “Come here and I’ll remind you how good it always was.”  She shook her head and Kee scrambled to grab her hand.  “You said last night we could try again, so let’s try!”  He tugged her closer, ignoring her attempts to pull away.

            “We can’t.  _I_ can’t,” Dae said.  “Last night was it, and I…don’t you see, I don’t love you.  I haven’t for a long time.  Maybe if we’d talked more then, tried harder to make it work—”

            “Damn it, all you ever wanted to do was talk!” he shouted.  It seemed his quick temper was something else unchanged by time.  “I came home from a tough day, ready to unwind and enjoy myself, and you’re gone, or yammering at me about what’s wrong with our relationship!”

            She was shocked.  “Will you listen to yourself?  We haven’t been together for years and you’re talking as if it was yesterday.  Now do you see why it won’t work?  Yes, I have changed.  The person I was is gone, and I won’t go back.”  He heard the determination in her voice.  “It would be wrong for both of us, we couldn’t possibly be happy.  Life’s too short not to be happy.”

            He flung her hand away.  “Then what, exactly, was last night?  Other than terrific, which it was and you know it.”  She flushed.  “That’s right, honey.  You can’t tell me any other man’s made you feel the way I made you feel, then or ever!”  He was still arrogant, that too was certain.

            _Every time you touched me last night_ , she felt like saying, _I thought about Data.  One kiss from him brought me more feeling than all your calisthenics._   What she said was, “Last night just proves it doesn’t have to be love to feel good.  But for me, it has to be love to go any further.  I’m sorry, but I was pretty vulnerable last night and you got caught in it.”  She turned away.  “I’m sorry you got…used, but that’s what happened, and it shouldn’t have, and it won’t ever again.”

            Her choice of words stung.  He flung back the sheet and stood up.  “Used?  You _used_ me?  As a substitute for who?  Who made you sink low enough to let _me_ be the one who got used?”

            That he had used women often, that he had used Dae last night as she admitted to using him, he ignored.  In his mind, no woman could ever want any other man when she was privileged to bask in the glow of _his_ attentions.  “I asked, who was it?  Who do I thank for the great gift of having you again, huh?”

            “Nobody you know,” she replied, hating the painful, familiar turn of the conversation.  She had forgotten how jealous he was.  “A friend is growing away from me and I don’t know how to stop it.  I thought going to the reunion would lift my spirits.  When you showed up, things seemed to get better.  And I won’t deny I’ve been lonely.  I just can’t justify a repeat performance.  You did help me feel better, for a while, and it isn’t your fault that it wasn’t what I really needed.”

            She looked up, oblivious to his nudity.  She might as well have slapped his face.  “I appreciate what you did for me last night, but that’s all there’s going to be.”

            Dae offered to fix him breakfast, but he had more to say and dragged her off the bed.  “You _have_ changed,” he snarled, disgust in his eyes.  “You’re just a lying tease, you know that?  How many other guys have you pulled that crud on?  I’ll bet you use it on your wimpy little roommate, don’t you!  If it doesn’t work on anybody else, you don’t have to go to bed hungry!”

            “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” Dae cried.  It was far too much like their last fight, starting small, escalating for no good reason, and she struggled to get away.  He clamped his hands on her arms and gave her a teeth-rattling shake.  “Stop it!” she demanded.  “I know I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry, but you’re not even trying to understand, like you always expected me to.”

            The reminder made him angry.  Really angry.  “So does _Dana_ make you feel like I make you feel?  Huh?  Does he?”  Shakes punctuated each phrase.  “Tell me how many times he’s fallen for it.  I can hear it now!  ‘Good evening, Dae.  May I make love to you, so you don’t feel so bad?’  God, that wuss!  Maybe I should stay ’til he gets back, warn him what he’s in for, huh?”

            “Damn it, let go!”  She pulled at him but his grip was too strong.  “And leave him out of it, he doesn’t even want me!”  And she gasped, betrayed by her words.

            Kee stopped.  He stared, incredulous.  His mouth fell open.  “Him?  He’s the one you were feeling all vulnerable about?  That mealy-mouthed, weasel-faced wimp?”  He burst into sarcastic laughter.  “You came on to me because _he_ turned you down?  Damn!”  His anger, his rage, went from a simmer to a full boil, and he backhanded her pale face.

            She spun out of his grip and landed against the edge of the closet door.  Just like the last time.  Their last fight, when he hit her.  The part of the story she never told anyone.

            She had taken self-defense classes as a teen-ager, but never thought she would have to use what she learned against the man she loved.  She was unprepared then for the sudden, bruising blow to her face, and had stared at him quaking in fear.

            His reaction at the time was to babble apologies, carry her to the sofa, hold an ice pack to her face, swear he would never raise his hand to her again.  Silently she agreed.  He would not, because he would never have the chance.  That was the week she moved home.

            Now she looked at him in shock, yes, but there was loathing in her eyes.  Her fall cut her eyebrow and it bled a little, and the whole right side of her face was a vicious red.  She would be bruised from temple to chin, with the added bonus of a cut on her cheek from his ring.

            Kee looked sick.  “Dae, honey, I’m sorry!  I don’t know what happened, are you okay?  Say something, Dae, please!”  He babbled apologies, just like the last time, how he never meant to harm her, should never have lost his temper, on and on.

            He reached for her, only to hug her and check her injury, he said, and she flinched away.  He only wanted to get her an ice pack, he said, and he promised to make it up to her later, with a smile that was meant to be seductive but only managed to be repulsive.  He reached for her again.

            After he hit her the first time, she took a refresher course in self-defense, taught by a woman who encouraged her classes to fight dirty or not at all.  “If you are not prepared to do _whatever_ it takes to get away, don’t go out,” was the instructor’s advice, and she taught her own brand of dirty tricks.  Dae was her star pupil, the memory of her bruised face spurring her on.

            Kee grabbed Dae’s arm.  This time, she fought back.  In two seconds he was flat on his back, overwhelmed by her reaction.  She planted one knee in the pit of his stomach and one hand, doubled into a fist, pressed against his Adam’s apple.  Her other hand found his most sensitive anatomy, nails pressed pointedly into his flesh.  He tried to get up.

            “No,” she said.  She shifted her weight, just a little, and pain bloomed in those three spots.  “No, Kee, you aren’t going to get me an ice pack and then ‘make love’ to me to make up for hitting me.  I don’t care how badly you think I’ve treated you, you had no right to touch me like that.  Not then, and not now.  You’re leaving.  I never want to see you again.”

            “But Dae—” he began, and those nails pressed in, and he went quiet and very, very still.

            “When I let you go, you will wait until I’m out of the room before you move.  Then, in five minutes, you will get dressed and get out.”  She was calm now, assured, and more threatening than Kee expected, especially when those nails sank further in.  He bit back a shriek.  “If you’re here five minutes and ten seconds from now, I call the cops, and after I show this shiner to your pals, I’ll charge you with battery,” she said, shifting again to accent the words.  “Do you understand?”

            He nodded as far as he could with her fist at his throat.  “Five minutes, no more.”  With one last dig of her nails, she freed him and left.

            She waited in the living room, cordless phone in hand, and was pleased when he appeared with half a minute to spare.  He used that to apologize, as humble now as he had been angry earlier, but she only jerked her head toward the door.  He went without another word.

            Dae flopped down on the sofa like an unstrung marionette.  Shaking took her, and for ten minutes all she could do was clench her jaw so her teeth stopped chattering.  Omar sprang to the cushion behind her and nuzzled her purpling cheek.  Her hiss of pain frightened him down, but soon he was back, and the other four soon joined them.  “I wish I did as well with two-footed people as I do with four-footed ones,” she sighed.  “I guess I should see how bad the damage is.”

            Makeup might hide the bruise, but nothing could cover up her swelling cheek.  She rinsed away the blood at her eyebrow and splashed cool water on her face.  “Kee was right about one thing,” she admitted as she looked at his handiwork.  “I need an ice pack.”

            In the kitchen, she filled a plastic bag with broken ice cubes and wrapped it in a towel.  This she applied to her cheek, wincing at the cold until it numbed the pain.  Then her stomach growled.  Without thought, she gathered ingredients with her free hand.

            A trace of oil went into a skillet on a low flame.  When it started to shimmer, she added a touch of chili powder and stirred until the aroma blossomed.  Frozen potato puffs came next, enough to mound up in the middle.  She covered the skillet and leaned on the counter to wait.

            As the potato puffs thawed, she would mash them into a thick cake.  It would brown on the bottom, then be turned over to let the other side get crunchy-brown.  Over the lowest heat two, or maybe three, eggs would cook atop the potato nest.  Then the whole thing would be slid onto a warm plate to receive the final garnishes of Parmesan cheese and salsa.

            Dae started cutting the puffs one at a time with the side of the spatula, flattening them as she went, and that was when it struck her.  She had used a large skillet, not a small one, and there would be enough to feed two.  “I wish Data would come back,” she said to the cats, “so I could invite him to breakfast.  Though I don’t think I’ll be very decorative company,” she added as she rearranged the ice pack and winced.

 

            An apartment, Data thought, would be more like life aboard ship, while a house offered greater privacy for his work.  Up close, though, none of his prospects seemed suitable.  One place was in need of major repairs; another looked better but the neighborhood was worse.  He dismissed a third when two of the tenants began arguing on the balcony, and so the morning went.

            The truth was, no place would be acceptable because he had no wish to move.  He would if he had to, but he preferred to stay with Dae.  He turned the car and drove back to her home.

            Kee’s car was gone and Data wondered if he and Dae were out.  No, there were un-catlike sounds in the kitchen.  Petting Malta, he went in.

            Dae got a case of cold feet when she heard the car.  Memory recalled the harm he suffered from her actions, how little like friends they had been the last few weeks, and she wondered if he had any real interest in changing the status quo.  She also grew shy of letting him see her face.  Quickly Dae slipped the ice pack into a pocket and, to hide the bruise, shook her hair into a style not seen since Veronica Lake.  She picked up the spatula just as he reached the kitchen.

            “Good morning, Dae.”  He sat with an elbow on the table and his hands clasped, waiting to see how this encounter would progress.

            “Good morning, Data,” she replied with a twitch of her lips that grew into a smile as she glanced his way.  “How are you today?”

            “I am functioning within normal parameters, thank you.  How are you?”  It was their longest conversation since the morning after their return from Las Vegas.  He experienced hope.

            “Oh, I’m fine.”  There was a sarcastic note to the words.  “What took you out and about on such a lovely morning?”

            Best, he thought, to let her know at once.  “I decided to investigate several different neighborhoods,” said Data, “preparatory to finding other accommodations.”

            The spatula clattered onto the stove, bounced off and hit the floor.  She grabbed it as he rushed to do the same, and turned to the sink to rinse it off.  The motion swung the hair away from her cheek.  His eyes widened.

            “Dae?”  She couldn’t ignore the question in his voice.  One gentle hand moved her hair aside.  The other turned her face toward him as he accessed medical files and found several possible causes for such an injury.  Only one seemed to fit the circumstances, but Data could hardly believe it.  “Dae, what happened?” he asked in the kindest voice she had ever heard.

            It nearly undid her.  Tears welled up.  “I…I made the mistake of trusting someone I shouldn’t.”  Dae caught back a sob.  “Almost as much a mistake as you made when you trusted me.”  She tried to drop her eyes, but he raised her chin until she had to look at him.

            “What do you mean?  Why has my trusting you been an error?”

            She shook her head.  “It’s okay,” she said in a choked voice.  “I know it was my fault.  If I hadn’t made a pest of myself, we’d never have gone to Max’s garden.  That conversation was the only way he could know you weren’t just as human as you look.  Data, I’m so sorry!”  She wept openly now, her tears warm on his hand.  “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, not ever, but my stupidity nearly got you killed, or worse!  I don’t blame you for wanting to move.  How can you be sure I won’t be deadly stupid again?”  Remorse hurt far more than her bruise.

            “Then you were not angry at me for declining your suggestion to couple?”  His sense of hopefulness grew.  He even smiled, for a split second.

            The question took Dae by surprise.  “Angry?”  She blinked to clear her vision and get a better look at his smile, but it was gone again.  “Maybe, at first.  Angry, and hurt, my pride more than anything.”  She chuckled, a sound Data had missed.  “But after sober reflection,” and she smiled at her choice of words, “I changed my mind.  Why should I be mad that you turned down a drunken pass?  It’d be like me getting mad at Kat for not wanting that drunk Jensen to maul her.”

            “If you were not angry, why did you change your behavior toward me?”  With the question he had waited weeks to pose finally in the open, he sounded, and looked, hurt.

            “Because I figured, after the trouble I caused, you wouldn’t want me for a friend anymore, so I thought I’d make it easy for you to leave if you wanted to.  Wished to,” she corrected herself.

            “You do not wish me to move?”  Data discovered that he had forgotten to breathe.

            Now she was not just surprised, she was stunned.  “Good grief, no!  I thought if I’d ruined things between us, you’d want to be left alone, but I never wanted you to leave.  Not ever.”

            “That is a great relief to me, because I have hoped to remain here.  For as long as you have no objections,” he added.

            Dae agreed with a quivering smile, “If you can put up with me, sugar, you can stay here as long as you like.  You have no idea,” she added, full of sorrow, “how much I’ve missed you.”

            “I have missed you as well,” said the android, and put his arms around her with practiced efficiency.  “And I would regret losing my only friend here.”  Relieved, Dae hugged him hard as she could but winced as her cheek hit his shirt buttons.  “Dae….”  He hesitated.  “Why did Kee strike you?  He could not have believed it was a justifiable action.”

            She gave a snorting little laugh.  “You’d be surprised just what some people can justify with no qualms at all.  In this case, I bruised his ego, so he felt turnabout was fair play and bruised me.”  Data found the reply insufficient, and said so.

            “When I told him the only reason we…well, ended up in bed, was because I was lonely for a good friend, and didn’t know if I could patch things up with that friend,” and she squeezed the android a bit harder, “he got insulted.  I can’t say I blame him for the emotion, but I let him know I _strongly_ objected to his method of self-expression.”  Dae looked up into Data’s face.  “Are you sure you want to hang around with somebody who’s so confused about her own motivations?”

            “I can think of no one with whom I would prefer to hang around,” he replied.  “However, at the present moment, I believe we should modify our position.  The cold compress you endeavored to hide in your pocket has begun to drip on my foot.”  Dae giggled and rebuilt the ice pack while Data perused the skillet.  “Surely you did not intend to consume all this yourself?”

            “Freudian slip, I guess.  I was hoping you’d be back in time to have breakfast with me.  I’m glad you turned up.” 

            Data, a smile flickering on his face, offered to do the cooking.  Sitting at the table with the ice to her cheek, she gave him instructions, and reveled in the pleasure of knowing they were still friends.

            The eggs were perfect, of course.

 


	22. Chapter 22

22

 

 

            They spent most of the day talking.  Dae asked what had happened with Max, took full responsibility for the whole ungodly mess, as she put it, and practically groveled in apology.

            Data forgave her but pointed out he was also to blame, and asked if they could leave the “heathen untidiness” behind them.  She agreed with a shy hug.

            A little later, the phone rang.  Dae answered.  It was Kee, begging forgiveness.  She forgave him.  He asked to see her.  She hung up on him.

            It rang again about an hour later.  Data answered.  He assured Kee that Dae was serious and said continued calls could be considered harassment.  They stopped answering after that.

 

            Data and Dae each took satisfaction in resolving their difficulties and learning to trust each other again.  The android was still cautious, not because of the events in Las Vegas, but because Dae’s abrupt about-face in behavior was almost as disconcerting as Ishara Yar’s betrayal.

            Dae was reserved, too.  Fear of letting her guard down, lest she make another pass at him, meant there were fewer of the hugs and kisses that had once been such a large part of their relationship.  But it was close enough to normality to suit Data, at least for the time being.

            His business prospered.  No one at ClairTech had expressed more than cursory interest in the “departure” of Dana Oliver, as the “new” contact was just as capable as his predecessor.

            He also went further afield on his own, to attend computer conventions and see the newest developments, and drum up a little business for CompCon on the side.  In case Max had agents looking for him at these events, the android developed a new persona.

            He made a blonde wig, used green contact lenses and changed the tones in his makeup.  He also asked Dae’s help in fabricating realistic modifications to the shape of his nose and ears, added a discreet but notable scar, and mimicked Riker’s voice and manner.

            It worked well, especially the scar.  He heard many whispers as he left the exhibits, most along the lines of, “Did you get a look at the scar on that poor guy?”  It was such an attention-getter, Data doubted most people would remember anything else. 

            He valued the expansion of his social circle beyond the people he knew through Dae, but she was still his first, best friend, the only one with whom he could drop all pretense and be simply Data, a freedom he appreciated more and more.  He spent as much time with her as he could.

            Dae worked like mad and loved it.  Her job, always a pleasure, grew more fulfilling, and Doc decided one of her designs should be used on the show.  He even recommended she get screen credit for the design, and the idea thrilled her.

            Her only worry, and it was a big one, was about her mother.  Minnie wrote or called as often as possible, but it was never often enough for Dae.  Sam Ames made it to Madagascar at last, and the group had gone to Sri Lanka while waiting for permission to enter India.  It came near the end of August, and Sam thought they could reach Khan’s base in Agra in under a week.

            By the week after Labor Day, Dae was frightened.  Minnie’s last letter said Sam had met with some of Khan’s representatives to arrange their meeting.  Dae still believed asking to see Khan would lead to trouble.  Data did what he could to ease Dae’s fears, but his knowledge of Khan’s future behavior left him unable to reassure her.

            Minnie managed to get a call through from Agra early in the morning on September tenth.  Data answered it in the office and woke Dae, who charged from her room with one arm in her robe and grabbed the phone while trying to find the other sleeve.

            “Mom!  Thank heavens!  I hadn’t heard from you in so long I was getting worried!  Let me put you on speaker.”

            Minnie had come to accept Data and enjoyed talking to him.  During one call she heard him playing guitar in the background, and often asked him to play.  He found her both an interesting person and a good source of research material.  First-hand knowledge of the situation, and the flavor she added to the experiences, was better in some ways than all the facts on the news.

            They chatted briefly, then Minnie announced the group from POWR would meet Khan in just a few hours.  “Do you believe it, Cissy?  Your poor old mother is going to break bread with Khan Noonien Singh!”  Eleven, including Sam and herself, would dine with Khan at six; if it went well Sam would ask him to intervene with the other Augments on behalf of the victims of their war.

            Dae said, “If Khan can make some headway with the others, that would be wonderful!  But promise me you’ll be careful!”

            “Of what, dear?  It’s just dinner, for heaven’s sake!  But if it’ll make you feel better, I promise not to spill my soup.”  She chuckled.  “Dana, is she this protective of you?”

            “Not quite, Mrs. Hutchins; you are her mother, after all.  But she occasionally approaches the same level of protectiveness on my behalf.  I must admit,” the android said with a glance for Dae, “that I appreciate it.  I have very few close friends.”

            They heard some murmuring in the background and Minnie said, “That’s Sam.  He says hello and I have to hang up!  Dae, Dana, you kids take care of yourselves!  I love you, honey.”

            “I love you, too, Mom.  Tell Sam I said hi.  Good luck.  From both of us,” she added.

            Dae wished Data goodnight again and returned to bed, but sleep eluded her.

 

            The next several days wracked Dae’s nerves.  Rumors flew at the set saying the series was ending, putting her in fear of losing her job.  Doc told Dae in private that the studio was considering several options, but right now there was nothing concrete to report.

            Khan fought off a border raid by Set and some of his followers.  Set’s fury at his defeat was reported to be boundless; where Khan professed himself a moderate, Set was a raving lunatic.  He vowed revenge on the other Augment.  Khan only laughed.  He had too much power, too many devoted followers, to be harmed by one as petty as Set, “that upstart Egyptian.”

            No word came from the POWR delegation once they left Agra.  The day after Khan routed Set, they held a news conference with Khan, who praised the organization and promised to consider helping.  Their stories appalled him, he said, tales of devastation and degradation so heinous, those who perpetrated such outrages could hardly be considered human, let alone “supermen.”  Since many of the worst conditions were in Set’s territory, the comment made a bad situation worse.  The media assumed the POWR delegation was lying low until Set cooled off.

            But Set had taken action.  An action he hoped would gain him support and humiliate his nemesis once it was made public.

 

            The twenty-first of September, 1994, would become for Dae’s generation as infamous as Pearl Harbor Day.

            For Dae herself, it dawned badly and got worse.

            It was already sweltering at four-thirty a.m., and she was due at the studio in less than an hour.  “Dae!” Data called from the garage.  “Come quickly!”  He had taken Malta her breakfast but the dog did not meet him at the porch swing as usual.

            She found Data kneeling beside the whimpering dog.  She tried to get up when she saw Dae, but couldn’t—her hindquarters were almost motionless.  The android did a quick examination while Dae held her pet and met her eyes with a slight shake of his head.  “I am sorry, Dae,” he said.  “I believe one, or possibly both, hips have broken.  Considering the present state of veterinary medicine….”  His voice trailed off at Dae’s expression.

“It’s okay, baby,” Dae whispered as she stroked the old dog’s head.  “Mama’ll make it so you…”  She gulped.  “So you don’t hurt anymore.  Stay with her, Data.”  She called Doc to say she would be late, raced out to open the gate and started the car before going back to the garage.  “Can you move her without hurting her?”

            Data maneuvered Malta into the back seat so expertly, she never whined.  Dae slid in to hold her and directed him to an emergency veterinary clinic owned, in part, by Tim, her regular vet.  He was on duty when they arrived and had Data place the dog on the table.

            Tim listened to their descriptions of Malta’s condition, felt the dog’s hips, and looked disheartened.  “I’m afraid your friend’s right, but I’d like to take an x-ray to be sure.”

            The x-ray showed that the dog’s hips had given way under the onslaught of hip dysplasia, arthritis, and old age.  “Okay, Tim, I guess it’s time.  Isn’t it, baby?” she whispered to Malta, and the dog turned pain-filled eyes toward her mistress as if she knew, and was glad.  Then she licked Dae’s hand.  “Data?  Do…do you want to say good-bye?”

            Data put one hand under the dog’s head, stroked her with the other.  “Good-bye, Malta,” he said, and she licked his hand, too.  He knew what was coming, of course, and had a sudden vision of himself in his future, standing over Spot’s pain-wracked body, taking leave of his own pet as he now took leave of Dae’s.  “Sleep well, my…friend,” he added in a whisper.

            They stood beside her as Tim readied the injection.  “Do you want to stay until it’s over?”

            Tears streaming down her face, Dae rubbed the hollow behind Malta’s ear.  Data stroked the dog’s head and put his other arm around Dae.  “We are ready, Doctor,” he said.

            It ended very quietly, just a twitch and one long, relaxed sigh.

            Dae asked Data to drive home, used the time to pull herself together, then took the car to work.  Data stayed home to continue his various projects.  The temperature rose and a rare smog blanketed the basin.

            About ten a.m., the S-net flashed a report so dreadful even Data could not believe it.

            Set had gone mad, attacking Khan again, but Khan’s forces stopped Set’s before they got ten miles into the Saudi peninsula.  The Egyptian turned on Umbote next, demanded that she surrender her East African holdings to him and become his consort.  She laughed in his face over the vidlink between Cairo and Pretoria.

            He, in return, bombed the area from Capetown to Johannesburg off the face of the planet.

            They mobilized their forces, she to retaliate, he to compound the slaughter.  The armies were already on the move when the orders came down; they met along the territorial boundary, what before the Eugenics Wars had been the Kenya-Uganda-Sudan border.

            Half a million Ethiopian refugees seeking sanctuary in Zaire were caught between the opposing forces.  A few hundred survived.  Of the six hundred thousand troops, only three thousand returned to their bases.

            Four and a half _million_ people died that day.

            The news lit a worldwide firestorm of protest.  Every free government, every U.N. representative, every member of the United States Congress, howled for Set’s blood.  The President met with her Chiefs of Staff.  Mobilization of global forces seemed imminent.  But to many citizens of many nations, the reaction was too little, too late.

Interviewers took polls, and the respondents said the world’s leaders should have done something about Set when he first took power.  Said citizens forgot they had lobbied hard to keep their forces out of the Augments’ wars.  Now, outraged by the perceived foot-dragging, the people took the streets.  Rioters clamored for action from London to Tokyo, and most major cities felt the citizens’ ire, expressed with riots, looting, fires and fists.

            Mt. Washington was quiet.  So were most of the neighboring cities.  But between Mt. Washington and Hollywood, between Dae and home, half of Los Angeles rampaged.  Some chalked it up to the heat, but whatever the cause, violence spread like the haze overhead.

            Data waited for Dae to return.  Concern for her occupied much of his mind.  He would have looked for her if he knew an efficient way to do so; riding his motorcycle into the midst of the fray seemed counterproductive.  Still, the waiting interfered with his work.

            Five o’clock came and went with no word from Dae.  Newscasts told of violent riots, of stores looted or wantonly destroyed, of people pulled from their cars and beaten, and Data experienced a cool uncertainty that was as close to fear as he could get.

            The doorbell rang at six.  Instead of Dae, Data saw an exhausted old man, seventy-two or so by his estimate.  A scruffy beard shadowed his sunken cheeks, and the circles under his reddened brown eyes were dark as bruises.  His sparse salt-and-pepper hair was haphazardly combed.  He slumped against the screen door in a well-tailored suit with too many wrinkles, a canvas sack in one hand.  When he saw Data, he pulled himself up and asked to see Dae.

            “I am sorry, sir, but she has not yet returned from work.”  The android studied the man, then said in recognition, “You are Samuel Ames, sir?  Philomena’s friend?”

            Her name made him flinch.  “Yes.  I’m sorry I look so disreputable, but things have been…bad lately.  Do you know when Dae might be back?  I need to explain—”  He cut himself off, cleared his throat and stood straighter, the businessman showing for a moment.  “You have the advantage of me, young man.”

            Data immediately let him in and introduced himself.  “Oh, yes, Dae’s new beau.  Minnie”—there was that flinch again—“said you seemed like a nice boy….”  He trailed off.

            Assimilating the data provided by Sam’s appearance, his being here when the last reports had him at Agra, and his reaction to Philomena’s name, Data drew a most unpleasant conclusion.

            There was no chance to pursue it as Dae’s car pulled into the back yard.  “Mr. Ames, please sit down.  I believe I hear Dae now.  May I get you a beverage, or something to eat?”  He walked beside the older man, but Sam refused help.  He set the bag on the coffee table and settled onto the sofa as if he expected never to stand again.

            Dae was subdued when she came in.  “Hi, Data,” she said in a dull voice.  “Sorry I didn’t call, but the circuits were all busy or dead.  It was easier to just drive.  Took me four hours on side streets.”  Her glance fell on the visitor.  “Sam?  You look awful, why on earth are you here?”  The implications of his presence took longer to hit.  Her face paled with such speed, Data thought she might faint.  “Oh, no,” she whispered.  “Mom.”  The android led her to the sofa opposite Sam and started to leave them in privacy, but she grabbed his hand and tugged until he sat down.

            Dae’s eyes never left Sam’s.  “I guess you’d better tell me.  What was it, her heart?”

            Sam huddled deeper into the cushion and his face seemed to crumple, all but hiding his grieving brown eyes.

            “I wish it had been, Dae,” he groaned.  “I wish to everything holy it had been.  It’s…it was my fault, child.  It was all my fault.”

            Her hand grew icy in Data’s as they listened to Sam’s story.

 

            India was one of the few countries to benefit from an Augment’s rule.  Khan’s methods were strict, but the charismatic leader was also an able administrator.  He kept people clean and fed, cleared slums, and improved schools, since ill-used dogs could not hunt, nor ill-used slaves work.  His followers tolerated those who did not share their admiration for Khan.  The delegation from POWR, seeing how well the general populace fared, hoped he would listen to their pleas.

            Coming to Khan was a brilliant strategy on Sam’s part.  It acknowledged the Sikh’s power and told him they—and by extension, others—thought of Khan as the leader of the Augments.  Sam’s desire for a meeting flattered the tyrant, who knew the other man’s motives full well.

            Khan agreed to help them, and aimed vile insults straight at Set.  Set chose to get even.  In his twisted mind, the people whose visit prompted Khan’s remarks were responsible; not Khan, who Set believed had let himself be used; not Set himself, whose depredations caused the problems POWR tried to solve.  No, Sam Ames and his troupe of snooping mediocrities were the reason Set was a laughingstock among the Augments.  He would see they paid for it.

            And so, after the Sikh gave them luxurious quarters and fed them lavishly during their stay, after the news conference, after they left Agra, Set’s revenge found the POWR delegates.

            Not even Khan expected trouble from the Egyptian in India, so their motor caravan had no guards.  When a squad of masked soldiers surrounded their cars, they did not at first understand.  The squad said nothing, just pointed with their weapons.  They tramped a mile through the brush to a sere, oven-hot clearing.  There were ten posts driven into the earth, each with a short crossbar about five feet from the ground.

            A man stood there, also masked, and made an imperious gesture: the group was to kneel before him.  The soldiers dropped to one knee and rose again to train their weapons on the POWR group.  They turned to Sam.  He made no move to kneel, so neither did the others.

            “Do you know who I am?” the masked man demanded.  “Do you know who you dishonor?”  He whipped the mask away.  It was Set.

            Sam’s jaw dropped.  “What are you doing in India?” he asked.  “Don’t you know Khan will kill you if he finds you?”

            “First you dishonor me,” Set mocked, “and then you show concern for my welfare!  Where was your concern when Khan slurred my good name, Ames?  You and your attempts to help your fellow ‘men’ used to amuse me.”  His laugh was like shards of broken glass.  “No more.”

            “What are you going to do with us, Set?” asked the shaking Minnie.

            The Egyptian’s dark eyes pinned her.  “No respect?  Not even if it could save your life?”

            Sam put himself between Minnie and Set before the soldiers could stop him.  Set waved them off.  “I like that, Ames,” he said.  “You stand up for your subordinates, something a good leader must do.”  The Egyptian shrugged.  “Too bad it won’t help them.” 

            “Please,” Sam began, “whatever you’re planning, let them go.  Their actions are my responsibility.  I’ll do whatever you say,” and he hushed their protests, “only let them go.”

            The Augment made a show of considering it.  “No,” he said with a sigh.  “No, it won’t make my point if only you suffer.”  He puffed his chest out.  “I will show the world that Set will not be trifled with, that insults of every kind will be met with swift and terrible retaliation.”  He sounded, Sam thought, like a bad novel.  The whole situation felt surreal, and the POWR delegates looked around, uncertain.  The masked figures and posts took on an ominous significance.

            “Unless,” Set began, and Sam felt hope, “unless you would agree to publicly recant the statements you made to Khan.  If you agree, I’ll let you go.  I’ll even help you get out of India.”

            Sam agreed on the spot.  The group behind him gasped.  Set laughed.  “No, Ames, you I do not believe.  You answer only to save their lives.  But what of the rest of you?” the Augment asked in a loud voice.  “Ames says you follow his lead.  If you agree to say he coerced you to speak as you did for some purpose of his own, my soldiers will get you safely to the border.”

            That blank yet penetrating stare raked them.  “Well?  Will none of you speak?”

            Minnie found enough saliva in her fear-dry mouth to spit at Set’s feet.  “So much for you,” he replied with a nod.  “She has made her choice.  It does not have to be your choice,” he reminded the rest.  “Discuss it.  Decide whether or not to live.”

            Nine frightened people huddled in the Indian dust.  Their whispers mingled with the leaves rustling at the edges of the clearing.  One shot a calculating glance at Set, who smiled his most charming smile.  Sam hoped they would agree.  Once they were free, they could tell the truth again, and maybe if nine went along, Set would have mercy on the tenth.

            His hope was crushed when the nine walked, one by one, to join Minnie.  “Very well.  It shall be as you wish,” Set said with a mocking bow to the leader of their group.

            Sam took a step forward at Set’s command and was met with a stunning blow to the face.  The old man reeled but did not fall.  “You will know what a crime you committed when you went to Khan instead of me.  I might have done as you asked had you come to me first.  But now,” and his chuckle was evil, “now, each child who starves, each man who falls in battle, each woman who dies in the street, will curse your name.  ‘Samuel Ames!’ they will cry.  ‘Set was kind to us before Ames went to Khan!  Damn him!’ they will cry with their dying breath.  And it starts here.”  Some of the soldiers busied themselves assembling video recording equipment around the clearing.

            Set caught a soldier with his gaze, and she ran forward to push Ames beside Set with her cocked rifle at his chest.  Other soldiers held out sacks to the condemned and told them to drop in their valuables.  Set ordered pens and paper, so they could write their farewells to their families, and their wills.  These went in the bags with the personal items.  The detailed planning, and the video equipment capturing their actions…the Augment watched, satisfied, as they absorbed the fact they were about to die.  “You may say your good-byes,” allowed Set.  Sam went to his friends.

            Minnie hugged him, tight, then another did, and another, telling him they did not blame him, that they had accepted the risks, but they were scared, so scared, they didn’t want to die, there was so much they still wanted to do, would Sam help their families, take care of them, protect them, would he, would he please…?  Sam said he would do everything he could, hugged each of them, these his children in the only sense that mattered, in their shared goals, and now their shared pain.  Some hoped Set was toying with them.  But the Egyptian’s face was a funerary mask, and they shivered despite the heat.

            “Minnie, I—”

“Don’t.  It isn’t your fault, Set’s actions are his own and no one can change that.  Tell Cissy…”  She choked down her tears and said with a smile, “Tell Davida I love her, Sam.”

            “I will, Minnie.  God have mercy on us all.”  They joined hands and bowed their heads, but they were not allowed even that comfort.  The soldier pushed Sam back to the Egyptian’s side.  The other ten were slowly, inexorably crucified.

            The soldiers dropped the bags at Sam’s feet, one by one.  Some had eyes like polished stone behind the masks, hard and cold.  Others seemed sorry for what was going to happen and gazed on the old man in sympathy, but none refused Set’s order to shoot.

            For half an hour the soldiers fired at careful intervals.  They struck no vital organ, but ripped flesh and shattered bone.  Sam, ramrod-straight, never took his eyes from his friends, no matter how the sight tore him.  They were dying for his pride, and he would not show weakness.

            More bullets flew.  Sam felt as if he watched from a distance as Minnie, and the other nine who had come with him to give aid to those who needed it, bled slowly to death.

            “I got the idea from an old movie,” Set explained as he offered a bunch of grapes to Sam, who ignored them.  Set ate the fruit, savoring the rich coolness.  “Moriarty decided to kill Holmes by draining his blood, so Holmes would be conscious to the last to…appreciate the experience.  It seemed a fitting punishment for my needs.”

            Sam said nothing.  In his mind he reeled off a string of curses which, if they came true, would subject Set to every single thing he perpetrated today, for all eternity.

            The first to die was a young English volunteer named Gerald.  The others followed over the course of five hours, their bodies drooping slack until Set ordered the nails pulled out, then falling loose to the crimson-black earth.

            “Now, Ames,” said Set, “we leave.  I’ll see you and your burdens get to Jaipur.  And I warn you,” he ended with a dismissive kick that sent a flurry of dust over Minnie’s face, “if you or any of your bastard inferiors comes into my territory again, this will be only the beginning.”

            Sam stumbled behind Set, who was saying, “I’ll even give you time to tell the families before I give the tapes to the media.  I think twelve days—one each for you, me, and those ten bodies back there—should be more than enough, don’t you?”

            Set got no answer, and laughed.

 

            Sam was a shuddering wreck.  He had done this nine times before and each time was harder than the last.  He felt he deserved anger, blame, hatred; but no one yet had shared that opinion, at least not to him, and their generosity only made his guilt worse.  The old man tried to compose himself.

            Dae went to the guest bath.  The men heard her crumple to her knees, vomiting, then she came back ashen-faced and sat with Sam.  The old man, who had shed more tears in the last two weeks than in the lifetime before, sobbed like a child.  “Shh,” was all she said.  “It wasn’t your fault, I know that.  It’s all right.”  One hand rubbed across Sam’s shoulders, back and forth, back and forth.

            “Dae, I’m so…if Molly”—Molly was Sam’s wife—“if Molly wasn’t already dead, this would kill her.”  Choking back the pain, he said his lawyers had copies of the wills and the tape.

            Dae’s hand stilled.  “Tape?”

            Sam pulled himself straight again and wiped a shaking hand across his face.  “I’m afraid so, child.  It came a couple of days ago, with a note that I’d better ‘finish my rounds,’ because the…general distribution is coming.  My attorneys have viewed it.  It at least makes contesting the wills virtually impossible.  I’ve been traveling since I left India, seeing that everyone’s out of Set’s holdings, and…and telling the other families.  Once he releases the tape to the media, you’re all going to have an even worse time of it.  You have no idea—”

            “Shut up.”  There was a curious flatness in her voice and Data grew concerned for both these wounded humans.  The old man stared as she went on, “If it hadn’t been you, and…and Mom, and Gerald and the rest, it would have been somebody else.  Pull yourself together.  If you give up now, Set wins.”  Her voice sharpened to a whip.  “Do you want the bastard to win?”

            He shook his head.  “I didn’t think so.  Let me get you a cup of coffee.  You always said I made better coffee than anyone but Molly.  Stay with him, Data?”  The aroma of strong coffee soon filled the air.  She came back with the tray and poured cups for them all.  She ladled a liberal spoon of sugar into one cup.  “Here, Sam,” said Dae as she handed it to him.  “Just the way you like it.  ‘As black as night, as hot as hell, and as sweet as love.’  Isn’t that what you used say?”

            Sam actually laughed.  “Yes.  You were about twelve at the time, as I recall, and your mother gave me holy hell for it.  After she finished laughing.  She was afraid it’d ruin your upbringing.”  He set down the cup to touch Dae’s solemn face.  “She needn’t have worried.”

            He stayed another hour.  Dae said little, but Data was full of cogent suggestions for defusing the expected media circus.  His first idea Sam agreed to at once, to call a news conference and explain what had happened before anyone had a chance to air the tape.

            Dae kept the cups full and convinced Sam to eat the hearty sandwich she set in front of him.  When he left, a little after full dark, he was in far better shape than when he arrived.

            The same could not be said for Dae.  Her unnatural calm troubled Data, and he had no notion how to help her.  He had seen loss, experienced it, but this was unlike anything else.

            Armus was more merciful than he intended, the android now realized.  How much worse it would have been to watch Tasha die slowly, in the full knowledge that nothing could alter her fate.  Dae had not witnessed her mother’s death, but the coming days were likely to be almost as bad as if she had.

            He sat across from her and accessed his files on psychology and therapy.  Getting her to talk was the tactic he thought had the most potential to be helpful.  At least if she spoke he had a chance to steer the conversation toward what bothered her.  “Dae, is there anything I can do to help you?  Would you like to talk about anything?  What happened at the studio before you left?”

            She sat a minute or two.  Then she told him, in that same dull voice.

 


	23. Chapter 23

23

 

 

            Doc was sorry about Malta but chewed Dae out for lateness anyway.  She could have been in an hour earlier if she had come straight from the vet’s and let Data take the car home afterwards, he pointed out, and now why didn’t she get her butt to work?

            It went downhill from there.  Dae was all thumbs, and the more she hurried, the clumsier she got.  They were filming on the set nicknamed “The Hole” for its bleak looks and unpleasant conditions, and it more than lived up to its name.

            They heard the first rumors of the double tragedies in Africa, and the answering chaos outside, during the lunch break.  Half the cast came down with cases of nerves, the other half just wanted to finish the scenes and get out of the Hole, but take after take kept them there.

            By two, shooting came to a standstill as more and more radios were tuned to the news.  Word came to send everyone home.  The set emptied in minutes.

            Dae and Kat and Doc kept busy removing everyone’s makeup, then headed to their cars.  There was a large trashcan behind Dae’s car, abandoned by the groundskeepers with their tools.  She moved the can and was about to open her door when she saw a flash of color under a bush.

            It was a bird.  Barely fledged, eyes still closed, it must have fallen from its nest.  _Poor thing,_ she thought with a sigh.

            The little chest heaved and a claw contracted.  One wing was bent at an unnatural angle, but the other quivered.  It was still alive.

            Dae knew that even if she could find its nest, it would never survive with a broken wing.  She could either leave it, at which her heart rebelled, or she could put it out of its misery.

            “You have to understand, Data,” she said, “that I’ve never killed anything bigger than a bug.  Malta…I didn’t have to put her down with my own hands.  But that poor little bird…if I left it there, who knew how long it would take it to die?

            “So I took one of the shovels the groundskeepers left, and I…I nudged the bird onto the shovel with a hoe, and I cringed every time its claws moved because I knew I was hurting it.  And then I tried to break its neck with the hoe.

            “I kept asking God why he’d put the poor little thing in my path, all the time I was trying to hit it just right.  I thought I’d done it after the second time, but its chest heaved again, and its claws doubled up, and I knew I had to try again but I had to do it right because all I was doing was hurting it worse, and I could hardly bring myself to do it but I did, and finally it wasn’t moving anymore, and it wasn’t breathing, so I waited another minute or two to be sure it was dead, and then I buried it in the leaves in the trash can and got in my car and started home.”

            A cold despair settled over her as she drove, saw the destruction, the crowds who surged toward her car.  One group surrounded her and bashed in a window before she could get away.  “And I thought the day couldn’t possibly get worse,” she ended.  Her eyes looked inward, he thought, on a picture of immeasurable horror.

            “Dae.”  It was all he could say at first, just her name.  He made a futile wish for the ability to feel, to help ease her pain by sharing it.  He wished Troi were there.  Dae’s silence was not natural—she showed more emotion at Malta’s death than at the news of her mother’s.

            He sighed.  Troi’s empathic talent was not available.  Accessing his files again, he found another option.  “Clinical and popular literature both make frequent statements to the effect that crying can be efficacious as a means of easing emotional distress.”  Data stopped to see what reaction his statement garnered.  Her head turned a bit and her eyes focused on his face.

            He continued, “Some of these mention the desirability of ‘having a shoulder to cry on.’  I assume they speak of someone else’s shoulder,” Data remarked as if to himself, “as the discomfort of the contortions involved in crying on one’s own shoulder would seem to negate any potential benefit.”  Her mouth twitched in a feeble smile, so he delivered the purpose of his discourse.

            “Dae, if you require a shoulder to cry on, I would be pleased if you considered mine at your disposal.”  She nodded after a moment’s hesitation, so he put his arm around her.  She leaned against him, locked her arms around him and shuddered, but she shed no tears.

            Nor did she all that evening, while she made call after call to give her friends, and Minnie’s, the news.  She would not open nor even touch the bag on the table.  In fact, except to yell at the cats when they approached it, she ignored it.

            When she called Doc to tell him she needed a few days off to make the necessary arrangements, he said to take as long as she needed.  Then he asked to speak to Dana.  Dae handed him the phone and wandered into the kitchen.  “How is she?” Doc asked.

            “Not well, Madoc.  She has not yet expressed any emotion concerning her mother’s death, as if she has locked her feelings away.  While I am no psychologist,” Data admitted, “I have a friend who is.  What Dae is doing is considered unhealthy.  If she continues, I am afraid that she will lose the ability to feel…anything.  Having experienced that state myself,” he said, more truthfully than Doc could know, “it is not a course I recommend.”

            “You haven’t planned to be out of town any time soon, have you?”  Data said no.  “Good.  I know Dae, Dana, and she can get moody, but this sounds worse.  God knows she has reason.  She’s put up a wall around her feelings, you’re right there, and she probably thinks it’ll make things easier.  But it’ll snap soon, and I’m afraid she might…she’s going to need someone she can trust, who can put up with whatever she dredges up.  Someone who cares for her.”  Doc left the words hanging, and Data filled in the other man’s pause with a speedy assumption.

            “I will be here, Madoc.  Dae will have the privacy she requires, but I will not leave her alone.”  He said it with such conviction, Doc put his fears to rest.

            She ate no dinner that night, and though she went to bed, Data could tell she never slept.

 

            The next day, Dae and Data arranged for Minnie’s service.  Dae answered the mortuary representative’s questions for the death certificate calmly enough, though she stumbled over the place and manner of death, and Data had to supply the date and time based on Sam’s story.

            They set the memorial for late Friday afternoon the following week.  The rep said she would arrange for a minister to contact Miss Hutchins and offered condolences.

            Dae only nodded and wrote the check for the service, leaving Data to thank the woman for her help.  He ushered Dae to the car and drove home.  Again she ate nothing, claiming she had no appetite, and that night, too, she got no sleep at all.  Friday was more of the same.

            Cluny came over on Saturday morning, as did Lani Manolana, Kee’s mother.  The son might be _persona non grata_ , but the mother Dae welcomed with open arms.

            A highboy in the garage held all Minnie’s papers, old pictures, other things Dae could not recall.  Data brought the drawers to them, one at a time.  Cluny asked about the canvas sack on the table.  Data explained.  Lani exchanged grim looks with Cluny and said the bag could wait.

            They went through the drawers until early afternoon, sorted what should be kept, tossed out the chaff, and Lani put all the pictures to one side, saying Dae could look at them later.

            In the bottom of the last drawer lay a large yellowed envelope.  Cluny reached for it but Dae said, her voice sharp, “No!  I know what this is, I think, and I want to see it.  Data?”  He appeared at her call, having spent the day listening to their talk so he would know at once if Dae needed him.  “Look at this.”  He stood behind her as she slipped out a black and white photo.

            It was Minnie, soon after her high school graduation, and it captured the young woman’s joy in the life she was about to start.  “Data, this was my mom,” Dae said in a tight voice.

            Data studied the curving smile, the arch of the brows, the eyes.  It exuded life, this image of the woman now gone, first to age, then to violent and horrible death.  “You look much like her, Dae,” he said.  “She was an exceptionally…aesthetic example of feminine beauty, as are you.”

            Dae groped for Data’s hand and thanked him.  She even blinked back tears, and he hoped she might be reaching a catharsis, but the time had not come yet.  Cluny suggested Dae frame the photo and use it at the memorial.  “Just a simple table at the front of the chapel, draped in—”

            “Emerald satin,” Dae broke in.  “Mom loved green, you know, and satin drapes well.”

            “And white lace, a lace runner, or a scarf,” said Lani.  “I’ll see what I have at home, honey.  And then the framed picture in the center.”

            “If I may suggest?” the android said.  Cluny nodded.  “The photograph on your dresser, Dae, of the two of you.  The photographs show your mother at her happiest: during her youth, and with her daughter, of whom she told me, on several occasions, she was quite proud.”

            Lani and Cluny applauded the suggestion, and Dae, speechless, pressed a kiss on his hand.

            Finally, all that remained was the canvas bag.  The four of them looked at it for a time.  “Shall I open it for you, Dae?” Data asked, still leaning on the cushion behind her.

            “No,” she sighed, “I’ll do it.”  On top of the contents was a note from Sam that expressed his sadness, took full responsibility for the tragedy, and apologized for his presumption but his attorneys had checked the will.  “Just like Sam,” said Dae.  “Mom always claimed he’d do something first and apologize later.”  The note went on to say Minnie’s luggage would arrive by the weekend.  If there was anything Dae needed, Sam had written, she was to call him at once.

            Next was the holographic will, leaving everything to Dae.  Sam’s attorneys considered it legal, binding, and uncontestable.

            There was some jewelry in the sack, most of which Minnie had bought or been given during her travels for POWR.  There was also the diamond ring that Dae had rarely seen her mother take off.  It was old, simple and beautiful, three narrow rows of stones in a white-gold setting.  Dae slipped it on and clenched her right hand around its icy touch.

            The last things were letters from Minnie, to Dae and Data.  The android read his aloud.  Minnie thanked him for his interesting conversations and the songs he played for her, and said she was glad he and Dae had found each other.  And she asked him to play something at whatever sort of service Dae planned, then closed with a hope he would be happy.  Experiencing a strange emptiness, Data folded the letter and said he would certainly do as she asked.

            Dae unfolded her letter with trembling hands.  The sight of Minnie’s writing brought tears to her eyes and she asked Data to read it aloud.  The other women each took one of Dae’s hands.

            _“My dearest daughter,”_ Data read.  _“By the time you read this, I will have died by Set’s order.  I want you to know that, though I’m not eager to die, I never really thought I’d come home.  I expected another heart attack would do it, but unless one comes very soon, that won’t happen.  I only hope Set makes it quick.”_   Dae moaned as she remembered Sam’s story.

            _“I don’t quite know what to say, Davida.  It doesn’t feel real to me yet, that I’ll be gone soon, my work done.  Done well, I hope, but done as well as I knew how.  That’s one thing I want you to always remember, that I did my best, and I want you to do the same, whatever happens.        “I wish I could leave you my certainty that my being here, working for POWR, was the right thing.  I wish I could leave you the strength it’s given me._

_“I have to go now, Davida.  Always remember that I think of you as my best accomplishment, that you are, and have always been, my pride and my joy.  Whatever happens, know that I love you, and that I always will._

_“Your mother, Philomena.”_

            Those three words plunged Dae into darkness.  Her mother was dead, butchered by a madman!  It was impossible, there was no way Dae would never see her again, hear her voice and her laugh, hug her….  The daughter, her mother torn from her by an atrocity too horrible to think on, saw her world collapse.  An anguished groan broke from her, rising to a howl of pain.  It was an appalling sound, one that pushed Cluny and Lani away, but Data had been waiting for it.

            All Dae knew was the need to feel arms around her, and by instinct she sought the strongest arms she knew.  She turned on the sofa and fumbled through the tears that fell at last until she found Data.  She threw her arms around his neck as sobs wracked her.  He lifted her over the back of the sofa and she clung to him as her pain wrenched agonized wails from her throat, made her pound his chest in fury as she cursed Set and his damnable pride.

            It took many long minutes, but her grief at last exhausted itself.  She collapsed against Data as if he were the only real thing in her world.  He held her with extraordinary gentleness as her cries calmed to sobs.  He spared some of his attention for Cluny and Lani and found them both crying as well.  “I do not know what to do,” he said.

            She trembled in his arms and started to slip, so he quickly—Lani and Cluny thought it looked quick, but it seemed very slow to the android—put one arm behind her knees, picked her up, and cradled her against him as if he would protect her forever.

            “Put her to bed, Dana,” Cluny suggested.  “Has she been sleeping at all?”  Data shook his head.  “Yes, definitely bed, then.  Go on, we’ll wait.”

            He set her down on the bed.  There was a box of tissues on the nightstand, so he used one to wipe her tear-stained face.  Breathing in ragged whimpers, she sat immobile while he slipped off her shoes and covered her.  He knelt and held her hand until she gave up and closed her eyes.  And then, not understanding why, Data placed a soft kiss on her lips.  The lines of pain around her eyes smoothed a little.  Data gave his makeup a fast inspection and rejoined the others.

            They were discussing the postscript Data had gotten no chance to read, in which Minnie asked that Dae, Ted  and Kat sing at her service.  The three of them decided to rough out the memorial.  It would be simple, just the eulogy, Data’s piece, and Kat, Ted and Dae at the end, if Dae felt up to it.

            The discussion moved on to Sam’s expected news conference.  Data thought Sam was waiting until the media was focused on POWR’s main office before making the dreadful announcement, in a probably vain hope of deflecting some of the attention from the bereaved.  “It will come soon, I think,” Data said.  “It must, or the news organizations will break the story first.”  Lani and Cluny left soon after, telling Data to call if Dae was no better.

            The android puttered around the house and garden, though he would have said he dealt with numerous minor tasks.  Finding a ripe eggplant, he decided to make a pot of ratatouille.  It was one of Dae’s favorites, and he hoped it would tempt her to eat.

            While part of his consciousness involved itself in slicing and sautéing, another part analyzed his behavior toward Dae, in particular the kiss he gave her.  He had no feelings, so why had he done it?  Why did he wish to put his arms around her and have her rest her head against his shoulder while she cried?  Why did he so wish to protect her, and from what?

            And why kiss her?  He could count on his fingers the number of times he had initiated such a contact.  Even his last kiss with Jenna came about because she asked, not because he volunteered.  What did he intend by it?  Was it an action meant to convey sympathy, or an overture to something else?  He resigned himself to further, probably fruitless, self-examination.

            Data turned the flame under the ratatouille down to a simmer, added a judicious amount of basil, a little oregano and a pinch of tarragon, then covered the pot and returned to the living room.  He watched television with one ear tuned to the sound of Dae’s breathing and a large part of his mental capacity devoted to his evaluation program.

            About two hours later the doorbell rang.  A messenger stood there with Minnie’s suitcases.  He helped Data bring them inside, saying, “The news conference is scheduled for seven tonight, Mr. Oliver.  Mr. Ames thought you and Miss Hutchins should know in advance.”

            “How kind of Mr. Ames.  Please extend our thanks.  And could you give him this?”  He wrote down the details of the service in his precise script.  “Dae will understand if he cannot attend, but would want him to know.”  The messenger left Data wondering what to do with Minnie’s luggage.

            “Who was it?” called Dae.  She came in and noticed the bags.  “Oh.  Mom’s stuff.”  She sighed and he saw more tears in her eyes.  “I should find out what there is.”  The android watched for signs that she was cutting herself off from her emotions again, but that did not seem to be the case.  He told her about the news conference and all she said was, “Glad I woke up.”

            She went to the pantry and got a box of trash bags.  “Dinner smells great,” she said, her crooked little grin at odds with her puffy eyes.  Her stomach growled in agreement and she laughed outright.  “Is there time to make pasta before the news, or should we wait to eat?”

            Her stomach growled again.  Data cocked his head and said, “The primary vote indicates we should eat now, rather than later.  I believe couscous would be an appropriate adjunct to the ratatouille, and it will be done quickly.”

            Dae said that sounded fine, so he made the couscous and adjusted the ratatouille’s spices to a more Moroccan mode while she set up trays and switched on the television.  Every channel was preparing to broadcast Sam’s statement.

            She joined him in the kitchen and perused the liquor cabinet.  “What kind of wine would you like, Data?”  He gave her a wary glance as he stirred.  “Don’t worry, I’m planning to have one glass with dinner and that’s all.”  Dae chose a rosé and found the corkscrew.  “After what alcohol almost cost me the last time or two I went overboard,” she said in a sorry voice, and leaned her forehead against the back of his neck for a moment, “I’m not willing to risk it again.”

            The broadcast started.  There was Sam, neat but haggard in the glare of camera lights and flickers of flash bulbs, saying he would read a prepared statement and then take questions.  The flash bulbs slowed, and the only sounds were the whir of video and audio equipment, and Sam’s voice, powerful despite his grief, telling the story.  He painted a clear picture of the tragedy and laid the blame where it belonged—right at Set’s feet.

            He explained about wanting to deliver the news to the bereaved families before making a public announcement, saying it was the least he owed them.  He told about Set taping the murders, and of the threats Set made against any POWR volunteers who entered his territory.

            And last, he read the names of his murdered friends.  “Gerald Sanborn, Great Britain.  Tarish Amde, Oman.  Fleurette de Lavant, France.  Philip Destro, United States.  Matteo Gamberetti, Italy.  Daniela Hadley, Canada.  Flavio Jimenez, Mexico.  Zvig Pogarsyan, United States.  Morton Brostoff, United States.  Philomena—”  His voice cracked.  “Philomena Hutchins, United States.  All murdered by Set because I had the gall to insult his vanity.”

            The doorbell rang.  Data answered it, wishing to spare Dae as long as possible.

            It was two men in dark suits, who identified themselves as security guards sent by Sam to protect Dae’s privacy for as long as possible.  One stayed out front, hidden by a large bird-of-paradise plant but with a clear view of both Dae’s stairs and the neighbor’s.  Data led the second to the back yard and got him a chair as he took up his post near the back door.

            Two-point-three seconds after the broadcast ended, the phone rang.  “Let me, Dae,” said Data, and answered it.  It was Sam, checking on the guards.  He spoke to Dae, saying he would make the service if he thought he could avoid bringing the media with him.

            Data fielded ten calls in as many minutes, all but two from the media.  After the last one, the android unplugged every phone in the house.  “It is only temporary, Dae,” he assured her, “but you will need to decide how to handle inquiries.  That might be done most easily without interruptions.  We must also consider how to complete preparations for your mother’s service.”

            Since the minister had not called yet, Data plugged in one phone and called the mortuary for the number so Dae could call him and get it over with.  They went over the details of the service while Data discussed security measures with the guards.

            In the back of his mind was another concern.  With all the media focused on the Hutchins household, it would take little time for Max Sinclair to recognize Dae as the escaped Mrs. Oliver.  He did not relish the idea of broaching the subject, but it had to be done.

            When he went back in, Dae was talking to the mortuary representative.  “Yes, Miss Seaver, that’s right, after the service.  You understand why I—thank you, I was sure you would.  Good-bye.”  Data looked at her, curious, and she asked, “May I hit you up for a loan, sugar?”

            “Of course, Dae, for whatever amount you require.  May I ask the purpose?”

            She smiled a little.  “I just bribed the undertaker.”  Actually, Dae had offered to make a sizable donation to Miss Seaver’s favorite charity if she kept the memorial plans out of the press.  That Miss Seaver’s favorite charity might be her vacation fund was not mentioned.  “I said somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five hundred.  What do you think?”

            “What did Miss Seaver think?” he countered.

            “I think she liked the neighborhood.”

            Data said he would withdraw the funds as soon as possible.  “What about the minister?”

            The Reverend Doctor Edward Billings had, in his conversation with Dae, extended his deepest sympathy upon the occasion of her tragic bereavement, assured her that her privacy was as important to him as his own, and said their association in this matter would not be revealed under any circumstances.  “I _think_ that means my secret is safe, but if nothing shows up in the news before the memorial, I’m prepared to give him a splendid gratuity.  What do you think?”

            “I think I shall obtain additional funds from my bank account.”

            She ran to him and hugged him.  “Thank you, Data.  I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

            He looked at her earnest face and gave her his quirky smile in answer.  “That is not necessary, Dae.  If you will not accept it as a gift, please consider it rent in advance.”

 


	24. Chapter 24

24

 

 

            A half-drunk cup of steamed milk, heavy on the nutmeg, sat on the nightstand beside two padds.  On one she recorded her dreams, the other held “Subspacial Rift Theory and Its Applications to Transwarp Propulsion Systems—A Philosophical Treatise,” possibly the worst researched, most soporific, paper ever published.  A somnetic inducer hummed its lulling spell.

            D’Sora chucked it across the room, followed by the treatise.  She finished the milk in one gulp and scalded her mouth.  Frustrated, she buried her head under the pillows and began counting sheep.  She slept.  Dreams soon followed, remarkable and alarming ones.

            She woke drenched in sweat and, taking a sonic shower to relax, D’Sora set down all the details she could remember before the images faded.  Abandoning the idea of bed, she dressed and headed to Ten-Forward.

            La Forge was talking with Worf about the investigations.  Another sandstorm raged in the Sahara, so the team assigned to the Bedouin Enclave had made little progress.

            There had been a touchy moment or two when several of the anti-technology enclaves balked at letting the teams wear communicators.  Worf had no intention of sending anyone anywhere without the means to communicate.  He ended up contacting the captain, who called upon all his considerable diplomatic skills.  As a result, all teams beamed down with comm badges.  None, however, had any news to report about Data.

            D’Sora got a Calaman sherry from the bar and joined the other two, explaining about her nightmares as she played footsies with La Forge under the table.  “Why are you still awake, sir?” she asked Worf.  Their shifts had ended several hours before.

            “Our inquiries move with frustrating slowness,” he replied, keeping his voice to a low rumble.  “I continue to seek ways to expedite the process.  I have not been able to rest tonight.”

            “And the doc’s gonna have his hide if he’s not careful,” La Forge put in with a chuckle.

            “I do not believe Dr. Crusher will find it difficult to understand my frame of mind, Geordi,” said Worf.  “She is as worried as I.  We all are.”

            The three talked a while, then La Forge asked, “Jenna, what’s the padd for?”

            She looked down and saw it peeking from her jacket pocket.  “I forgot I had it with me.  I was transcribing my dream images.  Counselor Troi said it might help if we could discuss them.”  D’Sora set the device on the table.  “She should have a real field day with this one.”

            “Is this a private party, or may anyone join?” a voice said.  They looked up to see Guinan.

            “Please do,” said Worf grandly.  “I will even buy your drink.  Prune juice for everyone!”   “Thanks, Worf, but no thanks,” La Forge said with a controlled grimace.  Guinan told a server to bring refills for the tables and a tranya for her.

            “And put it on Worf’s tab,” she added with one of her more mischievous expressions.  “What, if I may ask, brings this odd conclave to my lair so late?”

            D’Sora looked embarrassed.  “I couldn’t sleep.  Well, I could, but I kept dreaming about Data, and when I woke up, I couldn’t stand being in my cabin.”

            Worf felt a needle-prick of recognition.  “I did not know you had visions about Data.”

She demurred, saying that calling her nightmares “visions” was too grand a description.  “Still, it is interesting,” Worf said.  Would you share the most vivid with us?”  His intense curiosity surprised her, but she agreed.

            It began, she said, with Data suddenly disappearing from his station.  She led the search for him and wound up alone in a crawlspace, racing toward an eerie light as fast as hands and knees could take her.  Smoke drifted up from the plates beneath her.  She went faster.

            She came to a room, not an access junction but a room, cold and dark despite the overhead light.  Data sat talking to a man who pointed a weapon at him.  Others were there, another armed man, and a young woman who hung on the android as if to protect him while the man at the table with them fired his weapon at her.

            A thin trail of smoke rose from the emitter end, and a small projectile struck the woman’s arm.  She moved between Data and the seated man.  The man fired again, and a deep bloody streak appeared across her shoulder.

            Each time the woman interposed herself between Data and the seated man, she took another hit from the weapon.  At last he grew tired of her interference, for the next time she put herself in front of the android, the weapon spat a burst of flame that crisped her body to ash.

            Data faced the man across the table, who laughed and waved his weapon again.  The android collapsed into pieces.  The room became a primitive lab, where the android was rebuilt over and over again to no avail.  The first man solved the problem by building a creature that looked a little like Data but without the subtleties, a stick-figure caricature with a cartoon face.  Soon the lab was filled with Data-things, while the real Data’s head, forgotten, covered in dust, stared down from a shelf, and it looked at D’Sora and said quite clearly, “Please help me, Jenna.”

            In and around his voice came other voices, whispering or shouting or shrieking, _“You’d better hurry.  Data’s running out of time.  Running out of time.”_   Then everything started to swirl together, spinning to the sound of ticking and bells ringing, the ship’s computer counting down to some unknown deadline, and those voices kept saying, _“Data’s running out of time, out, out, out of Time!  Time waits for no man, why should it wait for an android?  Time waits, timewaits, timewaits timewaits time timeTIMETIMETIMEITMETIME!”_

            That was when she woke up.

            “I see why,” La Forge chuckled.  “Sounds as bad as mine.  What’d the woman look like?”  D’Sora described her as humanoid, dark-haired and pretty.  “Well, that sounds the same.”

            “You also had a dream about Data?” Worf demanded.  There was a thought at the back of his mind, a niggling significance, of something he forgot he knew coming back to him.

            “Sounds like quite a coincidence,” remarked Guinan with a curious glance at Worf.  “You two might be spending a little _too_ much time together.”

            D’Sora blushed, La Forge tried to stammer an explanation, and Guinan smiled.  She expected a comment from Worf, too, but none came.  The Klingon stared straight ahead, stiff-backed in his chair with his fists clenched.  “Worf?” Guinan said.  “Should we get Dr. Crusher?”

            Worf ignored her, focused on his internal landscape.  “I remember light,” he murmured.  The others leaned closer, a chill having nothing to do with the temperature creeping along Guinan’s skin.  “It was very bright, and I was…floating.”  He shut his eyes, and the dim light through his eyelids sparked another memory.  “I was floating, and my eyes were closed.”

            “You were asleep?” D’Sora said.

            “No, I was not asleep.  I was…”  The feeling of water lapping over his toes, of gentle hands supporting him, returned.  “I was in the water,” he said with more confidence.  And all at once the disparate images coalesced.  His eyes snapped open.  “It _was_ a vision, of Data!  It came on Maledin VIII, after my therapy there.”  He told them the details he had forgotten during the danger to his son.  “Had you not spoken, Jenna,” said Worf, “I might never have remembered it.”

            Now it was Guinan’s turn to stare.  She started up from the table, sat down, then got up again and went to her office without a word.  She carried a padd of her own when she came back.  “That would have been about 1430 ship’s time, our first day in orbit around Maledin VIII?”

            The officers traded glances.  La Forge thought about it and agreed since Worf, barely conscious when the group beamed back to the ship, could not remember.  Guinan slid her padd to the engineer.  “Check some of these time indices, Geordi.  Do any of them seem familiar?”

            The first matched the approximate time of Data’s disappearance.  The second was, to the moment, the time of Worf’s vision.  “The staff meetings when Q showed up, and here’s the night I had my dream, and—”  He sat back, stunned.  “And just a little while ago, while Jenna was dreaming.  Guinan, what the hell is this?”  He rattled the two padds together.

            “Those are the times,” Guinan replied, “when I sensed Q’s presence.”

 

* * *

 

            The first news truck showed up within minutes after Data disabled the phones.  He pulled the drapes, turned up the TV, and they hid, relying on Sam’s guards to keep the vultures from the door.  By Tuesday afternoon, Dae was so angry, so utterly furious, that she once again had trouble eating and sleeping. 

            Data plugged in the phone only when they needed to call out, since otherwise reporter after reporter rang it off the hook.  If one news truck left in disgust at the lack of action, two took its place.  Reporters questioned anyone who looked like he or she might have business in the white stucco house.  The neighbors, at least, refused to participate in the media circus.

            Dae used the time to go through Minnie’s bags.  Mostly clothes and more local jewelry, she set aside things she felt Minnie’s friends would value, then bagged the rest for charity.

            What surprised her most were the journals, five thick books filled with observations, thoughts, descriptions of her work, and sketches or watercolors of POWR members, local people, landscapes.  The last entries showed the red fortress of Agra, and told of the visit to Khan.

            “How about this?” Dae asked, and showed him a pencil drawing Minnie had done of the Taj Mahal.  “Mom was talented enough to be an artist, I think, but she didn’t think she’d make enough to support us.”  Dae swallowed hard and closed the book.  “Sorry, Data,” she whispered.  “I feel like I’ve spent half the time you’ve been here crying, and the other half being an idiot.”

            “In point of fact, Dae, the majority of the time you have behaved quite well,” he corrected her.  “You have spent only six of the twenty-six weeks of my tenancy behaving in a manner which you deem ‘idiotic.’  That is only twenty-two-point-eight-two-six-zero-eight per cent, not fifty.”

            She stared at him open-mouthed, then laughed.  “That makes me feel much better!”  The noise from the crowd drifted through the window.  “But that doesn’t.  What are we going to do?  We need groceries, and I have to frame those photos and get something to wear to the service.”  Data’s only dark suit was his tuxedo, so he also had shopping to do, and had yet to visit the bank.

            They decided Dae should agree to an interview, if the reporters promised not to tape or use pictures of them, and then left them alone.  She would use her middle name, Janice, and he should use a new persona and not mention his name.  When Data raised his eyebrows, she said, “I’m thinking about Max, for one thing.  Besides, I don’t need to parade my feelings.  I appreciate your being here, Data,” she added shyly.  “I only hope you don’t get tired of hearing it.”

            “As you well know, Dae,” he replied, “I cannot get tired.  But even if I could, I do not believe that a friend’s expression of thanks would have that effect, however often repeated.”

            Data had the guard out front present the idea to the press, and most agreed to it.  Dae hustled the cats into the office and closed the hall door while Data changed his makeup.  At her nod, he let the reporters in.  When it seemed a stampede might start, Data reminded the ladies and gentlemen of the press that they were, to use a slightly archaic phrase, in a house of mourning.  They settled down, more embarrassed than Dae would have given them credit for.

            Her hair pulled back in a severe bun and wearing her driving glasses, she answered questions for nearly three hours, detailing some of Minnie’s phone calls and reading from the journals.  Several press reporters asked to run the excerpts in their columns, and everyone wanted to use some of Minnie’s sketches, so Dae promised to forward everyone copies in a day or two.

            She suddenly ran out of steam and Data ushered the reporters out.  Dae took off the glasses, shook out her hair, and curled up on the sofa facing the window.  The android opened the drapes and reported that most of the media had departed.  “Good,” Dae murmured.

            “You have not been sleeping well,” he said, having heard her restlessness during the night.

            “No,” she replied, “but I’m okay.”  A deep sigh escaped her.  “Could you let the cats out of the office, and then….”  Dae blushed at his curious look.  “Could you sit with me a while?”

            He sat beside her after feeding the cats.  She scrunched down to give him room, dozed, woke, turned over, dozed, woke again.

            The continuing pattern gave Data an idea.  He recalled how, on their vacation, she had seemed to sleep best when in physical contact with him.  She tossed and turned before reaching his side, but once there, she stayed.  He could not account for it; never needing sleep, he had no reason to spend time in bed, and no one with whom to spend such time anyway.

            Except Tasha, of course, that once.  And she had most definitely _not_ slept.

            Data wondered what Dae would say if he offered to share her bed so she could rest.  The implications might be unwelcome.  Though she had overcome her uneasiness on vacation—as proved by her unconscious actions—she had still been embarrassed.  He did not wish to discomfit her, so in a spirit of compromise he asked if she wished to lean against him.

            The suggestion surprised her, but he thought she looked relieved as she leaned back with her head resting on his knee.  Something less than three minutes later, Dae was sound asleep.

            Data studied her face.  The shadows beneath her eyes were deeper, and there were fine lines between her brows.  Her luxuriant hair was unaffected by stress.  He recalled having told Jenna that her hair looked particularly silky that evening, when he had tried to maneuver their conversation into a lovers’ quarrel so they could make up and strengthen the bond between them.

            He touched Dae’s hair, the soft waves of it spreading over his knees.  He rubbed a few strands between his fingers and realized it did somewhat remind him of silk, like that in the dress she wore to Max’s party.  That reminded him of her expressed desire for intimacy.  Except once, to apologize, Dae had never mentioned it.  The difference between her and Tasha, he thought, was that Dae never denied it.  Except that he had seen to it there was nothing to deny.

            Dae turned on her side toward the moonlight, slid one hand under her cheek and laid the other on the android’s knee.  Fog and Omar nestled against Dae, one a puff of fur behind her knees, the other draped over her feet.  Princess chose Data’s lap and mewed for him to move Dae’s hair.  Data brushed the chestnut waves out of the way and she settled into a sphinx-like pose on his thigh and purred herself to sleep.  Cin and Mongkut were content to curl on the back of the sofa cushion and lean on his shoulders.  A single motion marred the tableau.

            Data was still stroking Dae’s hair.  He, an android with no emotions, was behaving as if he gained satisfaction from the contact.  It prompted both a self-diagnostic and self-analysis.

            All his functions were within normal parameters.  There was no malfunction of his tactile processors or the systems that served in lieu of voluntary muscle control.  Nothing had changed regarding the texture of her hair, no reason existed for a prolonged physical study of the strands and locks and waves—humans had so many ways to refer to the scalp’s keratinous outgrowths!—through which his fingers moved.  Though it was soft, lightly scented, something with jasmine in it, and lilies, and then he was trying to ascertain the chemical formula of her perfume.

            _“I fail to understand how stimulation of the olfactory nerves enhances the enjoyment of sex,” said the android, confused by the answers to his query about the alcohol-based floral synthetic he found on Angel One._   The others, Tasha and Riker and Troi, all were familiar with the custom of wearing fragrance, and its reputedly aphrodisiacal nature, but it was a concept which had never crossed his path in twenty-six years among humans.

            The connection between perfume and sex was something he had asked Dae about in one of their wide-ranging talks, and she had answered him.  She answered every question he asked, in fact, with a great deal of patience for his insatiable curiosity.

            And here he sat, watching the moonlight move and twining his fingers in her hair.  A thought formed.  Using the same circuits he used when seeking inspiration while painting, Data wondered what it might have been like to say yes to Dae in Las Vegas and _not_ renege.

            He recalled how Dae kissed him, held him when they danced, the way her pheromone production skyrocketed when they were close to each other.  He remembered being with Tasha, the thought that she had chosen _him_ rather than another pleasant even now.  As if it had made him more human to be pursued as an intimate partner, when no other of his female friends ever had.  Until Jenna, with whom things had not progressed past hugs and kisses, by her choice.  Until Dae.

            Perhaps, Data thought as he looked down at her profile in the glow of streetlamp and moonlight, perhaps, when she had completed the process of mourning her mother, he would—

            “Hello, professor,” sneered Q.

            The voice came from nowhere and startled the cats into instant snarls.  Q flashed into being and the cats froze at an offhand gesture from the alien.  They stood motionless, not breathing, and Data found Dae was similarly affected.  He glanced at Q, reproof in his eyes.

            “Oh, they’ll all be fine,” the alien snapped.  “I just didn’t want us to be disturbed.  They’ll never even know.  I’ve taken a little time out for our discussion.”  And in fact Data could see that the moon had ceased in its travels.  He raised his eyebrows.  Q asked, “Didn’t you believe me?”

            “I was unprepared for the literalness of your remark.”

            Q’s grin was devilish.  “Well, now you’re prepared,” he said, “and I’m rather shocked.  Every time I drop in, you’ve got your hands on her.”  The android’s hand came to rest on Dae’s shoulder.  “I thought Riker was the one with the reputation as a…what, _homme fatale_?”

            “I believe you are exaggerating, Q,” came the calm response.  “But in answer to the question I assume you have come to ask, my original theory remains unaltered.  I am still gathering evidence to support that position.”

            “Really?” Q said with an overblown expression of earnestness.  “Even after everything that’s happened to you here, thanks to _her?_   And all that’s happened to her, as a matter of fact?”

            Data, his mind on the alert, stared at him.  “You did not arrange—”

            “What, for that augmented human butcher to kill your friend’s mother?  I didn’t have to,” scoffed the alien.  “He had the idea all by himself.  And despite what you may think, I don’t take pleasure in suffering, nor do I take that much into my own hands.  Even if I wanted to, it’s forbidden.”

            “Really?” Data asked, fascinated.  “I was unaware the Q possessed a code of ethics.  From your past behavior toward us, and what you implied when you were stripped of your powers, I thought your society functioned on the basis of mutual self-interest.”

            “Well, now you know,” growled the alien, “and I expect you to keep it to yourself.  While it’s true we _can_ do anything we please, we aren’t supposed to do deliberate harm to lesser creatures.  It’s considered unsportsmanlike.”

            He breathed on his nails and buffed them on his uniform shirt.  “So you’re not ready to leave the barbarians and confess all their nasty little secrets to the Continuum?”  Data gave his head a resolute shake.  Q sighed, “Very well.  I do so want to be fair.”  Derision splintered his tone.  “But eventually, you’ll have to answer me.”  He disappeared without another word.

            The cats settled down.  Dae rearranged herself and slept again.  The moon continued to shine.  Data resumed stroking Dae’s hair and wondered about his state of mind.

 

            They checked outside the next morning and discovered no news trucks.  The guards said the last reporter had given up and left about four hours earlier.  It was time to do errands.

            They dropped off her car to have the window replaced, then went on his motorcycle to the bank and the mall.  Dae found a summer-cool but conservative dress in deep purple.  Minnie had hated black, she sighed, so Data bought a navy suit, a light blue shirt and an appropriate tie.  Their purchases went into one of the panniers on the cycle and they proceeded to the frame store.

            Then it was off to pick up four yards of emerald satin and half that much fine white lace—Lani had volunteered to sew the drapes for the display table.

            Next came the copy shop, and then a courier service to deliver the copies.  Dae handled the delivery details while Data phoned the garage and found out the car was done.  They moved their packages to the trunk and went to the grocery store.  Dae nearly cried in the pet-food aisle when she saw she’d put six cans of dog food in the cart.  Data gave her a stiff little hug, whispered that she could cry on his shoulder if she wished, and saw her smile instead.

            Lani picked up the fabric and promised to have the drape done by Friday morning.  She hesitated before she asked if Kee could attend.  Dae said yes, her expression telling Lani more than Dae knew.  Kee had told his mother he was so worried by what had happened, he was seeing the department psychiatrist.  But whether it would make a difference to Dae, Lani had no idea.

 

            Friday was a typical September day—dry, simmering, and smoggy again, the kind of day that stung the eyes and seared the lungs.  And there was a heaviness in the air that muffled all but the loudest noises.  Lani dropped off the table draperies.  Afternoon arrived far sooner than Dae wanted.  Sam had sent a limo, and was in it to go with them.  Dae showed him the pictures and he hugged her with tears filling his eyes.  The silence was broken only by Data tuning his guitar.

            Dae had arranged for a small chapel.  It was cool and quiet, all pale marble and light wood.  A utilitarian console table stood in the center of the raised area between lectern and altar.  Masses of flowers filled the air with fragrance, surrounding the console and nearly hiding the altar.

            Data draped the table, added the photos and studied the effect, then asked Miss Seaver for a tallish box.  He placed it under the drapes and rearranged the fall of the cloth.  It was pretty, Dae said, but it needed something.

            Sam plucked a flower or two from each arrangement and laid them between the photos.  One of the wreaths included several jasmine vines, two of which Data twined about the picture frames.  “Is that acceptable, Dae?” he asked, his usual calm turned to solemnity.  She nodded, shaking.  Miss Seaver suggested they wait for the minister in the private room off the main chapel.

            Dae went straight to the rail before another small altar, knelt and laid her head down on her crossed arms.  Data joined Sam in a pew.  The older man stared straight ahead for a while, then closed his eyes and bent his head.

            Billings arrived twenty minutes later, talked with Dae for a few minutes, and then it was time.  Walking between Sam and Data, Billings dutifully behind, Dae entered the chapel.

            Every row was filled.  The table and the floor around it now held more items.  There were old snapshots among the flowers, treasured handwritten recipes, trinkets and sketches sent from Minnie’s travels, even a bottle of her favorite whiskey.  Dae stopped to examine the additions, explaining their significance to Billings as he modified his eulogy on the fly.  At last Dae took her place in the open front pew, Sam and Data on either side.

            Billings went to the lectern.  In a voice both powerful and comforting, he spoke to the guests of Minnie’s work, of her talent for living, for making the most of time, though hers was cut most grievously short.  He spoke of the regard and affection she inspired in others.

            Then he invited the guests to come forward and speak, too.  One by one, people told of the many ways Minnie had touched them.  Sam’s poignant words, and his vow to never to forget her, moved the mourners to tears.  Dae sat rigid and silent.  Then Data went up with his guitar.

            “I never met Philomena Hutchins except telephonically,” he said, “but I believe I came to know her, at least a little, through our conversations.  Her life testifies to the marvelous resiliency and tenacity of the human spirit.  I regret that I will have no chance to know her better.”  He played one of Bach’s lute sonatas, elegant and stately.  When he sat down, Dae went up.

            “I just want—”  She cleared her throat, knuckles white as she clutched the lectern.  “I want to thank you for being here.  Mom would be honored, though I think she’d say we’re making too big a fuss.”  Several chuckles agreed.  Dae smiled and started toward Kat and Ted.

            Her heel caught in the carpet, and everyone gasped.  Data darted to her side before she fell.  She seized his hand and leaned against him.  “I can’t,” she moaned.  “I just can’t.”  One arm crept around him and she shook, her control nearing its limits.

            “Dae,” he said.  She raised her head.  “If you do not wish to sing, no one expects you to do so.  But I think, knowing you, that you would come to regret such a decision.”

            Ted and Kat joined them.  “Dana’s right, honey,” Kat said, “but could you at least keep us company?”  Dae’s answering laugh was shaky.  With another squeeze of the android’s hand, she went with her friends to the middle of the steps.

            They sang “Amazing Grace” a cappella, and when they finished the last verse Dae whispered, “I hope you liked it, Mom.”

            Billings ended the service with a moving prayer, and the guests filed up to give Dae their condolences.  After the first few, Dae felt more and more unsteady and leaned against Data.  He put his arm around her and left it there.

            Kee, especially, noticed.  When he tried to hug Dae, she stuck out her hand and moved closer to Data without a second thought, and he held her in a way that looked quite possessive.  Kee said he was very sorry, and hoped Dae knew he meant it for more than her bereavement.

            A smaller group met at the house for a potluck at which to share more memories.  Data, unobtrusive but competent, took over, because Dae seemed to want him to.  He was never pushy or overbearing, yet everything arranged itself as he thought she would wish it.

            He treated Dae with a grave tenderness that implied a great deal more existed between them than actually did.  He tried always to be nearby in case she wished to see him, and she wished to quite often.  She talked, even laughed and joked, but when sorrow shadowed her face, it was Data’s face she sought, his arm she drew around her like a shield against the relentless pain.

            Sam went home about six, only because Dae insisted he needed sleep.  The rest of the mourners trickled out after him, and by seven, Dae and Data were alone.

            She wandered to the kitchen to put away the bits and pieces, nibbling on whatever she happened to be holding.  She felt tired.  Not bone-weary, which enough sleep could cure, but soul-weary.  There was an ache in her heart, a barren feeling that said life had always been, would always be, this, and no joy would ever again mar the perfection of her sorrow.

            Data hung up his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and steered her to the window seat while he filled the fridge.  Her eyes followed his efficient movements.  When he had the food put away, he loaded the dishwasher and began washing glasses.  She told him not to bother.  Obedient to her wish, Data folded the towel and followed her out onto the terrace.

            The house had a great view on most days, but today the mountains vanished into a sulfurous haze and the skyscrapers of downtown were ghostly silhouettes.  The lowering sun stood in the soup of hydrocarbons and ozone like a drop of blood.  “Well,” she said in a dry voice, “so much for a cheerful view.”  Dae turned her back on the sun and went inside.

            Data watched her go, then did the same.  He halted as she went to her room and shut the door.  He heard the sounds of her undressing and showering, so he fed the cats, refreshed his makeup and changed into jeans and a polo shirt.

            “Great minds think alike,” she said when she saw him, though she wore a tank top with her jeans.  Her eyes looked deep and dark, shadowed violet from lack of sleep.  Data asked if she wished to nap and that, if so, she was welcome to lean against him.  She shook her head, sat with him a moment, then got up and paced.  “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to do with myself.”

            He asked if she was hungry, or thirsty, neither of which was the case.  “I’ve just got to get out of here,” she muttered, “before the walls close in on me.”

            Data cocked his head at her.  “The house is quite sturdily constructed, Dae,” he replied.  “The danger of it collapsing is minute.”

            She smiled.  “How’d you like to take a drive?  There’s something I want to show you.”

            “I would like it very much, ulterior motive or not.  Shall we take the car, or the motorcycle?”

            Hot as it was, the thought of putting on a helmet and a leather jacket made her skin crawl.  He helped her close up the house.  She grabbed her waist pouch, made sure she had the house keys, and took his hand as they walked out.


	25. Chapter 25

25

 

 

            Dae drove east, then north into the mountains as night fell.  Data thought she had a specific destination in mind, and she did, parking at a cliff-side turnout six thousand feet up.

            She led him to a break at the edge of the turnout, where a rough path led toward a projecting rock.  She went straight to it and pulled him along, turning sideways to edge around it.  Data spared a glance down.  A drop from such a height, for either of them, did not bear considering.

            It was a short path, he discovered, which debouched into a hollow in the mountainside.  The rock wall went straight up for about eight feet, then bent back, away from the hollow.  A natural ledge protruded from the wall, and it was there they sat, and she said, “I took a geology class and found this place on a field trip.  Look, Data.  Isn’t it beautiful?”

            The whole Los Angeles basin with its multitude of twinkling lights spread out at their feet.  Then she pointed up, and he saw the stars with greater clarity than he had in months.  His obvious appreciation made her smile.  “I did not know,” he said, hushed, “how much I missed the stars.”  Unthinking, he put his arm around her.  “Thank you, Dae.  I do not know how to express—”

            Dae kissed him, then leaned back against the wall, settled her head on his shoulder, and started to talk.  From her earliest memories, she told him about her mother and their rocky but loving relationship.  She told him her own faults and virtues, triumphs and despairs.  Sometimes she laughed.  Often, she wept.  And when she finished, Dae knew peace at last.

            Data commented only to ask for an occasional detail.  Silence surrounded them, but for him it was not truly silent.  He heard the minute scrapings and scufflings of insects and reptiles, the small mammals that made the barren rocks their home.  He heard Dae’s breathing, and her heartbeat, and was glad, or as close as he could get, that she was beside him.

            “Tell me about yourself, Data,” she asked after a while.  Her voice blended aesthetically with the other nocturnal sounds.

            “I do not understand, Dae,” he replied, bewildered.  “I am an android, an artificial, biomechanical life-form from a time other than your own.  What else is there to tell?”

            She grinned.  “That’s a lot like my saying I’m biological in origin and I was born in Long Beach.”  He looked even more puzzled.  “It may be true, but it’s less than enlightening.”  Dae put her arm around his waist.  “I want to know _who_ you are, Data, not just…what you’re made of.  I don’t really know very much about you.  Would you mind terribly?”

            He glanced down at the top of her head, nestled against him with such trust.  Though he knew she would accept a refusal without demur, he decided, “Not at all.”

            His origins were unknown at first, and endlessly questioned.  Not until the _Enterprise_ visited Omicron Theta did he discover who created him, and it only sparked more unanswerable questions.  He told her how he coped with the tremendous challenges of sentience and assimilation into the intriguing human culture to which he could never fully belong.  He explained the benefits, and limitations, of his programming, and she knew at last why he had refused her.

            He told of his tour on the _Enterprise_ , finding true friendship, and the challenges he still faced from those like Maddox and Haftel.  Dae was angry for him and, though he defended them, he agreed their views were distressing.  As was Tasha’s treatment after their romantic interlude.

            He was not quite ready to talk about that, though, so he spoke instead of Tasha’s friendship, of her sister Ishara, of Lore and his father and Ira Graves, of Lal, and he could not understand why Dae began to cry again.  “Poor Data,” she whispered.  “You’ve known such loss.  And now you’ve lost everything.  I’m so sorry.”

            “I appreciate your sympathy,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, “but I believe I have gained as much as I have lost.”  He went on, telling her all about Jenna, including their break-up.

            “She said, ‘As close as we are, I don’t _really_ matter to you, not really.  Nothing I can say or do will ever make you happy, or sad, or touch you in any way.’  And it was true.”

            There was silence for a moment, like a pause before a deep breath.  “Data, who’s Tasha?”

            The soft question made him stare at her inquisitive face.  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry,” she said, and hugged him again.  “It’s just that every time you mention her, you change a little.  Sort of like when you talk about Jenna, only more so.”

            “I was unaware that either name caused a modification in my behavior,” he replied.  He did not know the almost-sorrow that played over his face, the echoes of it in his voice.

            Thinking the remark was a polite way to change the subject, Dae turned to look at the stars and said, “Well, never mind.  Maybe it’s my imagination.”

            “Dae, you are a keen observer,” he pointed out.  “If you say I somehow change when I speak of Jenna, or of Tasha, I doubt the phenomenon is imagined.”  He watched the stars, too, his optical subprocessors compensating for atmospheric distortion.

            They were all too far away.  Everyone he valued was too far away.  Except Dae, who sat beside him in the chill of her grief and implied she saw grief in him, the emotionless android.

            Without preamble, Data spoke of meeting Tasha Yar aboard the _Enterprise_ , of her bravery when facing Q, her seduction and her denial, her senseless death.  Data told her things he had never revealed to anyone, experiencing them again and wondering why he felt so empty.

            “Jenna was wrong,” Dae sighed.  Data asked what she meant.  “When she said nothing she did could touch you.  She did, and so did Tasha and all your other friends.  Maybe not on an emotional level, but it’s there just the same.”  He started to dispute her.  “No, be honest, are you the same now as when you first woke up?  Or when you transferred to the _Enterprise_?”

            He got a wondering expression on his face, dazed by the realization.  “I have changed in ways I never would have anticipated based solely on my programming.  It is not rooted in my efforts to become more human, it is something else.  I wonder what?” he finished in a whisper.

            “I don’t know, but I hope you find out some day.”

            Data came at last to his test, though he declined to precisely define it and did not mention Q.  And when he had nothing left to say, they let the mountains’ stillness embrace them, let starlight and moonlight and city lights bathe them in stark, tranquil beauty.

            They spent five hours in that mountain hollow, feeling the diminishing warmth of unyielding rock and the coolness of the breeze, finding a union that surpassed the merely physical.  When Dae began to shiver, they went back to the car and Data drove home as she yawned.

 

            In Dae’s spare time, she and Data went through the things Minnie had left at the house.  The garage was full of shrouded furniture, several years’ worth of clothing and a small carved chest holding more jewelry.  Most of the first would go to charity, but the jewelry was another matter.  There were treasures among the family heirlooms, gold, pearls, cameos, even a three-carat emerald ring.  The chest went into Dae’s closet, though she never wore any of the contents.

 

            After the news broke about the POWR volunteers, the outpouring of feeling gave Set all the attention he wanted—but not the kind he expected.  Instead of getting the Augments to band with him to wipe their territories clean of inferior specimens, the other Augments, led by Khan, came together against Set.  They might share his opinions in private, but his rash actions brought violent public opinion crashing down on them.  Each one’s plans were set aside to follow Khan.

            Set trespassed again, and when he caught the Egyptian this time, Khan announced his punishment.  An eye for an eye, Khan said, a tooth for a tooth—and a life for a life.  To have done what Set did to the volunteers, not even defeating them in battle, was an outrage, so Set would die as they had died.  After all, one simply did not go about killing puppies because one disliked dogs.

            To the charges that Set had not been tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, Khan laughed.  What were the other Augments but Set’s truest peers?  And they needed no sham trial to judge Set, convict and sentence him.  To that, the world made no reply.

            So Khan executed Set, starting a bloodbath over his territory.  The fighting spread, expanding to include non-Augments at the borders and echoing the Augments’ own battles.

            It would not be long, Data knew, until the many separate wars exploded at last across the Augments’ borders and they attempted world conquest.  Despite the strictures of the Prime Directive, he still wished he could stop it.  His foreknowledge made him abnormally quiet for a time, and Dae noticed, sitting with him on the terrace until he could gain some peace of mind.

            He had a more immediate concern, though.  Someone was stalking him on the S-net.

            The first sign was a pointed query to CompCon in mid-July, from someone claiming to be checking references.  Data replied as the head of personnel and said Oliver had been a fine employee, if he came back they would hire him again in a heartbeat, but he had moved out of state.  The person making the inquiry logged off.

            Data tried at once to discover the origin of the query.  He was wary of the fact that he could not trace it with the ease he expected.  Whoever it was knew a lot about computers.

            But not enough.  Data trailed the unknown person back to ClairTech.  The user was quite skilled at covering his or her tracks, the android concluded, but could not elude him.

            He could, he knew, set up an electronic “road block” at ClairTech, but that would only tell the searcher he was on the right track.  CompCon still could not disappear.  It would be too suspicious, for one thing, considering the link between the company and Dana Oliver.  And while Data now had no financial need to work, he found the activity and interaction stimulating.

            No, his safest course was to find out what had already been done to find his alter ego.  Then he could design a more efficient way to deal with the problem.

            Data found many inquiries in the electronic depths of the S-net.  Employment records, bank and Social Security records, IRS reports—someone from ClairTech had systematically checked every possible source, beginning soon after he left Las Vegas.  There were similar questions about men named Daniel Oliver, Dana Olivier, and dozens of other variants on his assumed name, including Daneel Olivaw.  It was obvious that Max Sinclair was behind the search.

            It was worrisome.  Data shared his concerns with Dae.

            There were no longer any barriers between them.  Data spoke freely of his doubts about fitting in with humanity, of his loneliness, and found his loneliness eased, his doubts reduced; Dae told him everything, about work or Kee or her own periodic doubts, and felt comforted.

            They socialized together almost exclusively, though they accepted separate invitations now and then and spent time afterwards comparing experiences.  And Data thought it very curious that Dae began asking him to remove his makeup before these talks.  Once he asked why, and she shrugged and said, “I like you the way you are.”  He took off the makeup.

            Their relationship developed the rich complexity seen in pairings of long duration and deep feeling.  They found in each other someone to accept them without reserve.  And they took the time to tell each other of their gratitude.  As close as they had come to losing each other through Dae’s stubborn pride, and Data’s equally stubborn talent for self-effacement, they chose to leave no room for misunderstandings to flourish, so their relationship flourished instead.

            And in the back of Data’s mind, beyond his ability to articulate, an idea grew.

 

            “So would you like to go?”

            Dae asked the question.  The event in question was the annual Halloween party thrown by the makeup artists’ union.  Dae was going, of course, and thought Data might find it interesting.

            Data ruminated.  Dae waited.  He saw her eagerness, twitched his lips in a momentary smile, and said, “Yes, thank you.  I believe it will be most educational.  What kind of costume do you think might be appropriate?”

            Now it was her turn to grin.  “Actually,” she replied in a too-casual voice, “I thought you might like to go as yourself.”  His eyes went wide.  She chuckled.  “Sugar, Halloween is the one time of year that you can walk out of this house as you really are, looks and manner and all, and get nothing more than compliments.  And considering that you do wear makeup the rest of the time, Halloween’s the perfect time to do the opposite.  What do you think?”

            “I think,” he answered, “that it is a very good idea.  I appreciate the suggestion.”  When he asked about her costume, she just laughed and said it was a surprise.

 

            The party was the Saturday night before Halloween.  Dae refused to talk about her costume except to hope Data would find it “aesthetically pleasing.”  She parked out front the afternoon of the party, came up in with a garment bag and shoebox, and went to her room.  He caught only a glimpse of her, hair smoothed straight back from her forehead and lightened from dark chestnut to a medium auburn brown.  She suggested Data start getting ready.

            His uniform and boots were in his bathroom.  He placed his wig on its stand, took off his shirt and applied the cold cream.  Moments later his skin glowed in golden opalescence.  The contact lenses came out and his very own face stared back at him in the mirror.  Data put on the uniform he had not worn in over seven months, and looked like a Starfleet officer again.

            Why, then, did his uniform appear so alien?  Why did he feel like a stranger in his own skin?  Had he become so used to his human persona that his real self seemed the disguise?

            “Are you ready?” she called.  He said yes from the living room, so she told him to close his eyes.  He heard her soft tread stop in front of him.  “Okay, Data,” and he detected a quiver in her voice, “you can open your eyes.”

            He did, and his mouth opened in a silent gasp.  “Is my clothing appropriate, sir?”

            She wore a standard uniform, female version, in Starfleet gold and black.  A small leather utility pouch rode on her right hip.  At her throat were the rank pips of a full lieutenant, and a gleaming communicator lay above her left breast.  Her boots, while not regulation, were a good copy.  But the most surprising thing was her color.  Her face and hands had the same white-gold sheen as the android’s, with her eyes and nails a deeper, more lustrous gold.

            “Lieutenant Dae reporting for duty, sir.”  Even her voice was different, not as lively but smooth and articulate.  He realized she was copying his intonations, and quite well, too.

            Data recovered his voice at last.  “How did you accomplish your transformation?”

            She broke character and laughed in delight.  Kat sewed, she said, and made the uniform based on Data’s sketches of his friends.  As for her skin and eyes, well, greasepaint and opalescent gold powder and contact lenses worked wonders.  Hesitant then, Dae asked, “You don’t mind, do you?  I thought it might be fun to go as a matched set.  Is it okay?”

            His expression changed at last, to the rather touching smile she had seen only a few times.  “It is more than okay.  It is remarkable!  I think, were I susceptible to flattery, I would find this very flattering.  Thank you.  Shall we go?”

 

            The makeup artists’ party, held this year in the biggest soundstage at Primus Studios, was more than a chance to get together and blow off steam in the middle of the shooting season; it was a chance to show off your talents.  Dae and Data were two of the least remarkable guests in attendance, and compared to Kat, who looked hideous as a slavering blood-dripping hell-beast—Dae had helped her with the costume and makeup—they looked downright normal.

            They danced a while, then made the rounds.  The soundstage was divided into five sections.  The largest held the dance floor and buffet, three others ran movie clips.  The last held a “haunted” maze, which they threaded together.  It was not very complex, in Data’s opinion, but Dae enjoyed it, and when she tired of wandering, they returned to the dance floor.

            “And who are you two supposed to be?” a voice asked.  They faced the speaker, both faces reflecting mild astonishment at being addressed.  A flash bulb went off.  It was a reporter named Elliott Metz from the _Chronicle_.  “Come on, you can tell me,” he coaxed.

            Dae and Data looked at each other, then back to Metz.  They could not have achieved better sync had they practiced.  “I am Lieutenant Commander Data of Starfleet,” the android said.  If Dae said he could be himself, then he would.  “My companion is Lieutenant Dae.”  Dae nodded, a brisk dip of her head, and Data knew she copied him again.

            “Really?” Metz said as he scribbled notes.  “And what species are you?”

            Again they faced each other.  “Android,” Data crisply replied.

            Metz grinned.  “And just one more question, folks.  How do androids do it?”

            Data directed a blank look at the reporter.  “Do what?”

            Dae cleared her throat and said, “I believe, sir, that his inquiry relates to the manifestation of human intimacy via physical means.”

            Light dawned.  “Ah!  One of those curious euphemisms for a normal biological response.  In answer to your query, I have been programmed with multiple techniques in human sexuality.”

            “I assume you’ve been similarly programmed, ‘Lieutenant,’” Metz said with a leer.

            “I have.”  She did not elaborate.

            “And have you two ever compared your programming?”

            Two sets of eyebrows ascended, two glimmering foreheads furrowed.  Data searched his memory banks for an appropriate response.  “We have ‘answered three questions, and that is enough.  Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!’”  Metz grinned and went toward a nine-foot-tall creature trailing seaweed and smelling all too convincingly of dead fish.

            Dae allowed herself a small giggle.  “I never expected a comeback from Lewis Carroll!”

            The android shrugged, “It is only a paraphrase, but it seemed appropriate.”

            The “witching hour” approached.  Costume judging by applause gave the fishy-smelling contender first prize, while Kat, to her surprise but no one else’s, came in second.  Data congratulated her and went to the buffet to get a soda for Dae.  She stayed with her friend, talking.  The android perked up when he heard his name mentioned.

            “So how are you two doing?” Kat demanded.  Dae asked what she meant.  “Don’t be dense!  It was obvious at your mom’s service that you and Data have something going.”

            “Kat, whatever you might have thought, Data and I are friends, that’s all.”

            “But why?  He’s crazy about you, we could all see it, and you’re pretty crazy about him, too, and don’t try and tell me you’re not!”

            Dae heaved a sigh and slumped against the wall.  “Data doesn’t think of me that way, Kat.  Trust me, I know.”  Kat wanted an explanation.  Dae sighed again.  “Do you remember that plush Vegas party I told you about?  Well, I…I drank way too much champagne.”

            “Oh.”  Kat knew how Dae got on champagne.  “What happened?”

            “Oh, nothing much,” Dae shot back.  “I only made a pass at him.  A major pass.”  She muffled a snort.  “Hell, I practically jumped his bones on the dance floor.”

            “And what did he say?”

            “Basically, he said he didn’t love me and he wasn’t going to go along with my ‘suggestion’ because I was drunk and might regret it.  Of course, he was much nicer than that.”

            “But what about the way he acted after the service?” Kat asked.

            “Just drop it,” begged Dae.  “Data’s a kind, considerate man, and he’s been an extraordinarily good friend, but he doesn’t love me.  I’ve been too embarrassed to ask him if we might…well, I’d rather have him as a platonic friend than make another pass and lose him.  He means too much to me.”  Her friend gave her a long, searching look, then changed the subject.

            Data carried the soda from the table.  The conversation caused him no end of confusion.  Dae wished a closer relationship than they had, but would not admit it because she did not wish to risk losing him?  And what would he say if she _did_ broach the subject?  He made conversation as she drank the soda, then invited her to dance.  She said that would be acceptable, and winked.

            He looked into her eyes, alien in color but not expression.  There was the same happiness, the same vivacity she normally exhibited, as well as the sorrow she carried since Minnie’s death.  And Data fancied he could see something else in those eyes.

            A trace of…affection?  Even desire?

            He recalled Kat’s words, that he and Dae displayed affection for each other.  Enough affection, it seemed, to give all their friends the wrong idea about their relationship.

            But did it have to be the wrong idea?  He tightened his arm around Dae’s waist, just a bit, and she responded by pressing her cheek to his with a sigh.  He sensed the subtle increase in her pheromone levels.  He thought how kind she was, how brave, how aesthetically pleasing.  He enumerated her many virtues in his mind.  And Data’s perceptions underwent a fundamental shift.

            He was no longer Data, Lieutenant Commander, Starfleet, misplaced in time, whose home was the _Enterprise_.  He was Data, sometimes Dana Oliver, computer analyst and program debugger, and his home was in Mt. Washington, with Dae Hutchins.  Though he still missed his Starfleet friends, and Spot, here and now he had other friends, and a future to plan for.

 

            The next day, Data put his communicator in the recharging unit and set the device, turned off, on the closet floor.  There was an outlet close enough to keep the unit plugged in, but he chose not to leave it in plain view.  He lived _here_ now.

            He suggested dinner at a beachside restaurant and told her he would drive, “So you may enjoy the view,” he said.  She smiled.  He noticed again how aesthetic it was.

            They went for a walk after dinner.  Dae scrambled over a little promontory to a small, protected inlet.  Data followed, his cautious movements safeguarding his makeup, and found her sitting on the sand.  Knees pulled under her chin with her arms around them, she sat a few feet above the high-tide line, admiring the sunset.  He copied her posture, watched her face in the light for a moment, then turned to watch the ocean.

            They sat that way a while, talking about the cloud patterns, or the depth of blue in the sky, or the silvery-pink edges of the waves.  Dae mentioned how relaxing the waves sounded.

            “Relaxing?” he said.  She nodded.  “Ah. I understand.  You refer to the auditory consequences of lunar gravitation acting upon the Terran hydrosphere.  As you are no doubt aware, the moon, due to its proximity, exerts a far greater gravitational pull on the Earth than does the sun, despite its lesser mass.  The standard ratio of lunar versus solar tidal force—”

            “Data,” she said.  He looked at her perplexed face.  “For now, can we just watch?  You can give me the details later.”

            “Of course, Dae,” he replied, the very embodiment of courtesy.  It was quite a pleasing sunset, he had to admit.  The sun’s angle of descent combined with the atmosphere to render the whole palette of reds from pale pink to deep crimson.  Rather than explain the phenomenon, he put his arm around Dae’s shoulders and silently admired it with her.

 

            Dae got home from work on Monday to find the cats in the office, the kitchen table set for two, and a small bouquet centered on one plate.  The android stood at the stove preparing a mélange of fresh vegetables to go with seared salmon filets and fragrant jasmine rice.  They had a lovely dinner and sat in the living room talking for most of two hours afterward.  Dae took the nosegay to her room when she went to bed.  Data’s lips quirked into a brief smile.

            A similar scene greeted her the next night, and the next.  A new addition to Thursday’s surprise was a small envelope holding Saturday night tickets to a movie Dae wanted to see.  There was also a note in the android’s precise hand inviting her to dinner that night.  She showered him with hugs and kisses of appreciation.

            The movie was terrific.  So was dinner.  Dae was quite happy.  Data smiled.

            The pattern repeated the next week, except Thursday’s envelope held tickets to a play.

            _This isn’t like him,_ she thought.  But he felt no emotions, she knew, she was sure any change of that magnitude would prompt comment.  _If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was courting me._   Curious, Dae studied him across the table.  “Data, are we…dating?”

            His serious expression made her think she was on the wrong track, but he said, “That was my intention, Dae.  If you would find it acceptable.”

            A shy smile grew across her face.  “Most acceptable, Data.  _Most_ acceptable.”

 

            The courtship was governed by Data’s interpretation of Dae’s unconscious signals.

            The android’s abrupt change in attitude confused her.  She asked him about it, wondering if some documentary had said long-term roommates always got romantically involved.  But there was nothing of the sort, he said.  He embarked on this course because he wished to.  If she did not approve, he would stop.  She kissed him then, though not with passion.

            She asked again what the catalyst was, and he confessed overhearing her with Kat at the party.  “But Data, you were yards away in a crowded room!  What if you’d heard wrong?”

            He shook his head.  “Unlikely, Dae.  You once pointed out I have an extraordinary olfactory sense.  This is true because I am an android.  My visual acuity, tactile processing, and auditory perceptions are equally extraordinary in human terms.”

            Dae blushed.  “Oh, my.  You did hear us talking.”  Then she turned an even deeper red.  “If you could hear that, then you must have heard Kee and me.”  She gulped.  “Oh, hell.”

            “Do not be distressed, Dae,” he said.  “While my hearing is very good, I also possess a capability not available to humans.  I can turn it off.”  She kissed him again.

 

            Data was surprised to find that as he courted Dae, she began to court him.  She came home the next night with a gift for him, a pair of hand-stitched cowboy boots in black leather.

            She began offering movie or theater tickets, dinner invitations and museum outings.  These gestures of affection had a deep impact on Data.  They had no emotional effect, but touch him they did, in some indefinable way.  Within in his neural nets was a storehouse of sensations created by the fact Dae cared for him, and let him know she cared.  His synapses strengthened in the areas storing Dae’s sensory input patterns, making them even more receptive.

            It might not be emotion, but it was the most intense interpersonal contact the android had ever known.  It balanced with something less pleasant, his enemy on the S-net.

            He discovered one night that someone was trying to break into his “company” computer.  While the electronic intruder wound through his security maze, Data brought up a set of false personnel files, including a termination file for Dana Oliver mentioning the man’s plans to travel.

            He then hid his real files behind a wall of code whose encryption system was based on Vulcan logical algorithms, then opened a loophole to the false information.

            Like a fish striking, the intruder took the bait and ran for home.  Data followed him back and discovered the “him” behind the mysterious inquiries was in fact a “her” named Naomi Enderson.

            In a way, he was pleased to know only a single person was tracking him.  If he could keep Enderson occupied, he might remain unmolested by Sinclair for years.

            Assuming he was lucky.  If he knew nothing else from his stay in this era, Data knew humans could always be counted on to do the unexpected.


	26. Chapter 26

26

 

 

            “Or what I thought felt like Q’s presence,” Guinan amended.  “Now I know I was right.  I wish I’d been certain earlier, we might have found Data by now.”

            “Q’s been influencing our dreams?” asked La Forge in disbelief.  “I’m not sure I like the idea of his running around inside my head.”

            “You’d be right not to,” she said, her voice as flat as the look in her eyes.

            D’Sora let them talk.  The coincidence was too incredible to ignore.  When she rejoined the conversation, it was to have Worf describe the equipment he saw in his vision, and to refresh La Forge’s memory of his own dream images.  She was getting an idea too wild to mention—unless it panned out—and excused herself to go back to her quarters.

            By now she was an expert at defining search parameters.  Her fingers flew as she entered them.  “Computer.”  It chittered.  “Records search.  Using technological specifications as input, find references to anyone matching Data’s description on planets at similar levels of technology.”

            “Define temporal parameters,” requested the computer.

            The computer could not see her blank look.  “Explain.”

            “The technological specifications are consistent with many planets’ historical development,” it explained.  “Do you wish to limit the inquiry by temporal reference?”

            “Oh.”  She shrugged and said, “No, no time limitations.  How long will this take?”

As outlined, about six hours, the computer replied.  “Good.  I think I’ll go to bed.”

            Meanwhile the computer sifted byte by byte through every kiloquad of data it held.

 

            When D’Sora discovered that no matching entries had been found, she almost gave up.  Then she had another idea.  “Computer, interface with the main Federation computer on Earth, upload records for the specified time period and apply retrieval parameters to the uploaded data.”

            “Overwrite duplicate file names?” the computer queried.

            “Negative!”  She would not interfere with the ship’s database, as files with duplicate names might contain radically different data.  “Set up another subdirectory keyed to my access and dump the upload there, then run the search.  Estimated time?”

            “For the upload, estimated time required is five hours, thirty-one minutes, depending on the quantity of data matching given parameters.  The time necessary for the retrieval program is unknown, since it will depend on the quantity of data uploaded.”

            At bare minimum, it seemed the inquiry would last well into her next shift.  “Proceed with upload,” she ordered, and left to see if La Forge had any free time before she went on duty.

 

* * *

 

            Data and Dae carried their delicate wooing into the holidays.  They joined Kat and her family for several enjoyable hours on Thanksgiving, and Data learned more about humans.

            He thought about his friends on the _Enterprise_ , how they risked their lives every day they spent in space.  An accident with the warp engines, an away mission gone wrong or a surprise attack, could annihilate them, and everyone knew it.  But life aboard a starship led one to feel safe.  Only after a hazardous mission did the pace pick up, then return to normal as if waiting for the next brush with danger to make them once more aware of this miraculous thing called “life.”

            Dae and her friends had concerns of their own, not life-threatening, perhaps, but just as deeply felt.  Yet happiness, even joy, seemed a large part of their lives.  The android led Dae away from the others and asked if hardship did, in fact, make happiness more valuable.

            She nodded.  “There’s an old saying that you have to take the bitter with the sweet.”  Dae ruffled the hair in his wig and whispered, “And you, sugar, are the sweetest part of my life.  Thank you.”  She kissed him, and though it was brief her lips seemed to cling to his.

            Kat noticed the way they whispered together, the way they kissed.  They might not be in the midst of a classic romance, but there was something going on.  She studied them a little more.  They lavished attention on each other but she thought neither of them knew they were doing it.  With a tiny grin, she brought them back into the group.

 

            Christmas was a dilemma.  Data had given few presents in his past, and the ones he gave Dae as part of their courtship ritual seemed insufficient.  Certainly the advertising surrounding the holiday implied it deserved the most extravagant presents possible.  So he asked about past holidays and let her memories guide him, noting the gifts she recalled with the most favor.

            At last he came up with one gift he thought would please her, and for other ideas he asked Kat’s advice.  His list might not be lengthy, but he believed Dae would prefer a few very meaningful things to a copious number of more casual choices.

            Dae, of course, was far more familiar with gift-giving, yet she knew the things appropriate for a biological male—cologne, clothing, game equipment—Data would find of only passing interest.  She was walking past her favorite bookstore during lunch when the idea hit.  She went in, had a long talk with Len, and left knowing that at least part of Christmas was solved.

            The android tried to throw himself into the seasonal festivities.  He went with Dae to choose a Christmas tree and found their artistic ideals clashed, that he favored spare shapes while she liked fat, bushy ones.  They compromised on a small tree with a symmetry he approved and contours full enough to suit her.  They hung it from the ceiling to try frustrating the cats’ acrobatic tendencies, strung it with tiny lights, and decorated it until the branches almost disappeared.  Data had to admit it made a very pleasant picture.

            The rest of the house got its share of attention.  Dae hung catnip stockings from the mantel for the cats, and real ones for Data and herself, explaining that she and her mother had used the stockings for silly gifts.  Soon both stockings overflowed.

            Fat red and white candles stood on the dining room table.  A pinecone wreath threaded with fresh greenery hung on the front door, and the kitchen sported red plaid dishtowels and potholders ablaze with holly.  The house radiated contentment.

            Christmas Day dawned crisp and bright.  Data, in the office, heard Dae wake and shower.  He stood to join her when she opened her door, then noted her stealthy movements.  He decided to let her to finish what she was doing in privacy, though he was extremely curious.

            Dae made several trips back and forth from her room.  At last Data heard her walk past the living room into the kitchen.  Reasoning that her mission was concluded, he left the office.

            The floor beneath the tree was piled with boxes covered in festive papers and ribbons.  Several bore his name and he wondered if his own contributions might be ungenerous in comparison.  Then he recalled that Dae was as pleased by a single flower as by theater tickets, monetary expenditure notwithstanding, so he added his presents and joined her in the kitchen.

            She was dressed more formally than her morning custom, in black slacks and a cowl-necked bronze sweater.  Coffee brewed as she stirred together the ingredients for popovers.  She turned at his step and gave him a sparkling smile.  “Merry Christmas, sweetheart!”

            “Good morning, Dae,” he replied, noting the endearment with interest.  “And a Merry Christmas to you as well.”  He held his arms open, stiffly, and she laughed as she hugged him.  The tactility of her sweater, a lambs’ wool and angora fabric he had not previously encountered, intrigued him.  She lifted her face to receive his kiss, which the android applied in the prescribed manner, but her reaction also differed from her norm.  She seemed more yielding, yet more participatory at the same time.  Before he had a chance to mention the change, she ended the contact.

            They opened their gifts while the popovers baked, beginning with items from the stockings.  Relief filled the android when he discovered many of the presents came from, or were meant for, others, and Dae had only kept them in her room so the cats stayed out of them.

            Said cats tumbled blithely through the ever-mounting heap of paper.  What Data had believed might be too few presents turned out to be an embarrassment of riches, according to Dae, but she went equally overboard because she wanted his first Christmas to be memorable.  He assured her it could hardly be otherwise, considering his memory, but thanked her for the thought.

            Near the bottom of the heap, Data handed Dae a heavy box that held—a box, a black and red lacquer puzzle box.  In order to find the gift inside the box, she had to figure out how to open it.  She turned it this way and that with a glance now and then for Data, who looked as curious as she felt.  After a few minutes, he offered to solve the puzzle.

            “Not on your tintype, buster!” Dae giggled.  “You’ll just have to wait while I work it out!”

            “I have no objections, Dae,” he said.  “But I remind you that your popovers should be done in approximately twelve minutes and there are still two more presents.”

            At that, Dae focused her attention on the box and found that one part of the design was different.  She pressed the spot and a shallow drawer slid out, holding an envelope.  Previous envelopes had held movie or theater tickets; this one held an invitation to dinner and tickets to a musical on New Year’s Eve.  “Oh, Data, thank you!  Add this to Doc and Cluny’s party after the show, and our evening is complete!”

            Dae handed him his last gift, ordering him not to peek until she got back.  She hurried to the kitchen, checked the popovers, then started some bacon.  She returned to see him hefting the parcel as if gauging its contents.  “Okay, you can open it now,” she told him, and he had the paper off before she finished the sentence.  Wesley would have approved.

            He held autographed first or second editions of all Asimov’s Robot books and stories.  “Dae, how did you find these?” he asked, opening each one to the frontispiece and reverently tracing Asimov’s signature.  Dae said Len at the bookstore had located them in just three weeks.

            The android had not read the books until he got to 1994.  Few complete Robot stories survived the post-atomic horror, and those, plus the fact that other works or articles mentioned the fictional positronic brain, kept the dream alive until Noonien Soong could give it true life.  Because they were the ultimate sparks of his existence, Data treasured all the Robot stories.  And because Dae was even more sensitive to his attitudes than he knew, now they were his.

            He was, for once, speechless.  Dae used the time to turn the bacon, check the popovers, and mix eggs for omelets.  By the time she came back, Data had placed her last gift on the sofa.

            It was large, flat, and heavy.  Dae started tearing paper away with care.  When she saw an ornate picture frame, she went faster.  “This…this is spectacular,” she breathed, turning it toward the light to study the details.  Every moment revealed another surprise.

            Data had painted a picnic, and what a picnic!  Part Rococo, part Romantic, with Maxfield Parrish’s ethereal luminosity, it showed a table on a tree-lined lawn beside a lake, still but for the wakes of a pair of swans.  Sunlight poured like gold through the leaves, highlighting a Grecian folly.  The table bore baskets overflowing with fruit and confections so lush they made Dae’s mouth water.  Minnie, in eighteenth-century costume, poured coffee for Sam Ames from a silver urn.  Dae, in pale yellow lawn frothed with lace, sat further down the table and turned a coquettish glance toward an artist recording the merriment.  The artist, bathed in the light, bore a striking resemblance to Data.  Other friends sat around the table, or played games beside the folly.

            She had Data help her take down the picture over the fireplace and hang his gift in its place.  Then she stood back to admire it and faced him with a smile so joyous he simply had to bask in its glow.  It was the only logical thing to do.  It was just as logical to return her thankful hug and kiss, and he noticed once more that odd combination of yielding and strength.

            He also noticed the bacon was on the verge of burning.

            They would have been content to spend the whole day by themselves, but Tony and his family had invited them for Christmas dinner.  It was a lively meal—Tony’s family was large and ebullient, they all liked Dae, and the android found, to his surprise, that they liked him too.

            It was also educational.  Data learned about tamales, menudo, and Mexican hot chocolate, the last of which he analyzed with great care so he could present it to the chocolate-addicted Troi.  But that would be later.  The thought would have troubled Data two months before.

            Now, it troubled him not at all.

 

            Dae was off the week between Christmas and New Year’s.  They used the days to visit and sightsee, since Data had a talent for finding out-of-the-way locales.  And he wondered.

            She never said anything about their relationship except to that she was happy.  It pleased him to know the status quo suited her, but in light of the way she kissed him, he could not help speculating on her reaction should he suggest a change.  This romance did seem more in keeping with the traditional human viewpoint, and he hoped not to ruin it with an error in judgment.

            They decided to make New Year’s Eve a fancy occasion.  Data wore his tuxedo and Dae, at his request, wore the ivory silk dress.  The night was chilly, so she carried a black velvet cloak that was her mother’s.  They made a striking pair.

            They dined at a restaurant atop a downtown office building but spent more time looking at each other than admiring the view.  Data found Dae more vibrant, more alive, and she thought him more self-assured.  He had triumphed in his quest to pass as human and it added something to his public behavior.  Still, she liked it best when they were at home and he could be himself.

            The play was splendid.  Data watched Dae watch the stage, saw her admiring smile or the spill of a tear, depending on the action, and marveled once more at the complexities of human emotional expression.  Dae turned to him and caught the sudden look in his eyes, the yearning to know that which he never could, and her hand tightened on his.

            At Doc’s home in Pasadena, the party was in full swing.  The living room had two levels, the lower of which became the dance floor, and there was a lot of activity near the windows.  Data inspected the spot as they greeted Cluny, then asked Dae in a low voice why there was a sprig of greenery hanging from the ceiling, and why couples paused beneath it to osculate.

            “That’s mistletoe.  A Christmas decoration,” she said, as if it explained everything.

            It did not.  Curiosity afire, the android checked his files and said after a minute, “Ah.  Family, _Loranthaceae_.  European, _Viscum album_.  American, _Phoradendron flavescens_.  A parasitic evergreen plant usually found growing on the branches of trees.  Traditionally associated with ancient Druidic practices, although many scholars doubt the traditional view.  But why—?”

            “Data, it’s an evergreen,” Dae replied.  Despite her patient answer, he still looked perplexed.  “In cold climates in ancient times, plants that stayed green when everything else was dead or blanketed in snow were assumed to have…special properties.”

            Now it began to make sense.  He found the correlation in a subsidiary file.  “Specifically, they were deemed to possess mystical generative powers.”  Dae nodded.  “So this,” he went on with a nod to the still-busy spot, “is a modern reenactment of an ancient Druidic, or perhaps pseudo-Druidic would be more precise, fertility rite.”  His brows drew together.  “I fail to understand how a pagan fertility rite became such an integral part of a religious holiday....”

            They danced as midnight loomed.  Champagne was poured.  Someone turned on the TV to watch the replay of the ball drop in Times Square and the group hushed.  Data brought Dae to a stop.  And Doc’s happy voice rang out, “Okay, everybody!  Ten, nine, eight…”

            “Seven,” the guests took up the count.  “Six, five, four, three, two, _one!  Happy New Year!”_   Laughter, cheers, the sounds of noisemakers broke loose, and someone outside had lit long strings of firecrackers, and amid the noise and laughter couples kissed in the New Year.

            Data saw this, faced Dae, noted her smile and bent his head.  “Happy New Year, Dae.”

            “Happy New Year, Data,” she answered as their lips touched.  He felt that same yielding in her, only stronger now than before, and the strength, pitiably small compared to his own, of her embrace, and Data experienced another profound attitudinal shift.

            _“Data, when it_ really _works between two people, it’s not like anything you’ve ever experienced,” Riker said with a grin.  “The rewards are far greater than simple friendship.”_

_“How far, sir?” Data asked._

_Riker’s roguish grin broadened.  “That’s what I’m hoping you’re going to find out!”_

            That had been when Data was trying to decide whether or not to act on Jenna’s overtures.  He had not found out during that sequence of events what the first officer had meant.

            Data realized he was now motivated to find out.  He looked up, drew Dae’s attention to the mistletoe above their heads, and kissed her again.  Except he used the technique he developed during his lesson, the one Dae said he should only use if he was really serious.

            She melted against him and returned his kiss with equal vigor.  When they parted, she whispered his name like a question, breathless, and her pheromone levels skyrocketed.

            “I have decided that, with your approval, of course, the new year might be an auspicious opportunity to expand the parameters of our relationship.”

            She gulped, her heart pounding.  “Expand how far?  In which direction?”

            He placed his lips next to her ear.  “To whatever level, in whatever direction, you see fit, Dae.  To the fullest extent of human intimacy, if you wish.”

            “Oh, my.”  She swayed in his arms as they left the mistletoe.  “May I think about it?”

            “Certainly.”  And then he cocked his head at her and said, “I admit, however, that I find myself…eager to hear your answer.”  He had once explained that he seemed to understand anticipation, and its close relative, eagerness, so she knew he spoke not from any kind of human desire, but from the part of himself that wished to be human.

            But she had grown since meeting him; had he asked six months earlier, she would have said, “Yes!  Let’s leave now!”  Tonight, she left it at the kiss and tried to sort out her feelings.

 

* * *

 

            Worf stood at the tactical display checking with the Away Teams in the various enclaves.  Interviews with residents turned up no word of anyone even a little like Data.

            D’Sora took a moment to check on her program.  The computer had found a match!  She pulled up the information and froze, then checked it again, sure she had made a mistake.

            She had not.  “Sir,” she said, “look at this!”

            Worf left Tactical to look at her screen.  “Commander Riker!” he called in turn, and Riker’s long stride took him to the upper bridge at the insistent note in the Klingon’s voice.  He followed Worf’s pointing finger to the display.  His mouth fell open.  Then he tapped his communicator.

            “Captain Picard to the bridge.”  Picard emerged from his ready room and joined them.

            Gesturing to the screen, Riker said, “Lieutenant D’Sora seems to have found Data, sir.  But there’s going to be a little problem in picking him up.”

            The captain glanced at the screen, then leaned forward to study it more closely.  “I think, Number One,” he said in a shocked voice, “that four hundred _years_ is more than a little problem.  Senior staff, report to the bridge observation lounge immediately!  Lieutenant D’Sora, join us,” he tossed over his shoulder.  “Mr. Macombrey, you have the bridge.”

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

27

 

 

            Dae did not answer that night.  New Year’s Day she held an open house from eleven, when she and Data served brunch, to six, when they set out a dinner buffet.  Being Sunday, there was no parade or Rose Bowl, but even then they had no free time.

            They gave the cats fresh water, left plenty of dry food to tide them over, and went back to Doc and Cluny’s, which was a good base for anyone with seats for the parade.  Data and Dae joined Ted, Liza, and several others in front of the Norton Simon Museum.  They all had sleeping bags, cushions, pillows, and warm clothes, and planned to sleep on the bleachers.

            Data, after watching the others fumbling to get situated, expertly arranged the seat cushions on the metal bench and opened the double sleeping bag.  He let Dae have the side without seams, sat down beside her and zipped the bag up.  She snuggled close, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and touched his cheek to encourage a kiss.  After a pleasant minute or two she said, “You remember that decision you made, Data?”

            He nodded.  “Well, I’ve made a decision, too.”  His brows rose.  “I’d _love_ to.”

            A flashbulb went off.  They turned in surprise to see Metz, who did a double take.  “Hey, it’s my androids!  How’re you doing?”  Their friends gave Metz the reluctant couple’s names.

            He asked Dae how she was recovering from her mother’s death, added the usual inane questions about New Year’s resolutions, then went off to interview more parade-waiters.  Dae settled back against Data with a little grin.  “I suppose we should’ve been paying more attention, but I think,” she said with a careful nuzzle to the android’s neck, “I was preoccupied.”

            He looked pleased.  They arranged themselves so Dae was comfortable and she fell asleep.  Data held her in an unwavering embrace, closed his eyes, and busied his mind with plans.

 

            The next morning, January 2, 1995, the Los Angeles _Chronicle_ landed on Dae’s front porch.  In the “Life and Times” section was a special pullout, a thick photo retrospective of the year entitled, “’94 Through the Camera’s Eye.”  On page sixty, a pair of photos lay side by side.

            The first, in color, showed a man and woman with gleaming golden skin, dark hair, and gold eyes.  Both wore what appeared to be uniforms and stared at the camera with polite but disinterested expressions.  The second, in black-and-white, showed the same two people wearing street clothes and bundled up in a sleeping bag.  Their faces very close together, and her hand caressed his cheek.

            The brief story read:  “At the annual Hollywood Masked Ball, thrown at Primus Studios by the Makeup Artists’ Union, this reporter caught ‘Lieutenant Commander Data’ and ‘Lieutenant Dae,’ a pair of ‘Star Fleet androids,’ tripping the light fantastic.  Last night, staking out seats for the famed Rose Parade, I caught them again—in a far more compromising position!

            “Davida ‘Dae’ Hutchins and Dana ‘Data’ Oliver took their New Year’s celebration onto the streets of Pasadena.  Hutchins, whose mother Philomena was murdered last September by Set, says she owes the credit for her recovery from that tragedy to her friends, many of whom work with her at Primus Studios.  In this reporter’s opinion, most of the credit looks to be Oliver’s!

            “Their plans include watching the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game (see TV Info for local listings and times) with friends.”

            The subjects of the article had no idea it existed.  Yet.

 

            In Las Vegas, Max went through his usual newspapers.  He never wasted time reading the equivalents of the “Life and Times” section, so he tossed the L.A. paper’s to one side.  It slithered across the table to the floor.  Heaving a put-upon sigh, Max retrieved it.  He appreciated good photography, so the color insert caught his eye and he laid it on the table to leaf through it.

            The edges of the pages were serrated and clung together, a couple near the middle more tenacious than the rest.  It took thirty seconds for Max to pry the flimsy pages apart.

            He stared at the photos.  He read the story.  Smiling, he dialed the phone.

            “Naomi?  Do you get the L.A. _Chronicle_?  Special section, page sixty.  That’s him.”

 

* * *

 

            Data’s image, pulled from the color photo by the computer, lit the display.  D’Sora explained the circumstances that led her to set up the massive records search.

            Both Worf’s vision and La Forge’s dream included equipment and clothing that looked familiar but which neither could at first identify.  The similarities, along with Guinan’s perceptions of Q’s visits and D’Sora’s own dream with its insistent repetitions of time-related themes, led her to the idea that Guinan’s time sense was active because Q had sent Data into the past.

            In her first inquiry the night before, she had the computer use the descriptions of the equipment, clothing, and game as general guidelines to find the closest possible matches.  It found them in Earth’s twentieth century.  So D’Sora told the computer to check records for all planets at an equivalent stage of development, looking for a mention of the android.  By not limiting the search to the present, the computer began with that period in Earth history and searched forward, as well as checking other planets’ records.  The ship’s database yielded nothing.

            D’Sora ran the same retrieval program on the upload from Earth, and this time the computer found something, a fragment of an article with Data’s face—and an unbelievable date.

            The whole discovery was a fluke.  She added, “The text is so degraded, it may not be recoverable.  The computer is trying to recreate the missing pieces from comparative sources.”

            “So now what do we do?” asked La Forge.  He drank in the sight of his friend’s face, even if it was two-dimensional and four hundred years old.

            “More properly, Mr. La Forge,” said the grim-faced captain, “do we do anything?”

            Everyone started to speak at once and Picard rapped on the table for order.  “I understand your feelings,” he said, “but you know as well as I the Starfleet regulations prohibiting time travel.  The chances that we might inadvertently change—”

            “But Captain,” La Forge broke in, “Q’s already messed with the timeline by dropping Data there.  How much more harm could we do by going back to get him?”

            Picard skewered the chief engineer with a reproving glance.  “The point, Commander, is that we have no choice in the matter.  I can, and will, approach Starfleet Command for a special dispensation, but I fully expect them to deny my request.”

            Crusher spoke up.  “And what happens to Data if we leave him there?  We have the date, and Earth is about to leap into half a century of destruction that culminates in World War III.  I don’t care how well shielded his positronic brain is, nuclear fallout could kill him!  What if—?”

            The captain held up a hand.  “Doctor, I am as aware of history as you.  I understand your concerns, but we cannot act in the past.”  He looked as if the words left a bitter taste.  “Let us assume Data _will_ survive.  How might he manage it, and where should we search?  Opinions?”

            They did their best to follow the captain’s lead and treat it as an unusual scientific investigation.  They were not, however, entirely successful.

 

            La Forge and D’Sora had a quiet meal in his quarters.  She was subdued, both from seeing Data’s face staring out from a 1995 news report and the remnants of her dream.  And seeing Data with his arms around another woman gave her a twinge of jealousy she didn’t expect.  She jumped when La Forge waved his hand before her eyes.  “I wouldn’t want Deanna’s job right now,” he said with a chuckle.  “I’ll bet people are more worried now than before we found him.”

            “But we don’t have him back yet,” she said.  His smile disappeared.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but that dream…I’m afraid something will happen to him there.  Something bad, for all of us.”

            La Forge sighed as they curled up on the sofa.  “Yeah, me too.  The captain’s right, though.”  He rubbed his face against her hair.  “I just don’t happen to like it.”

            The only productive suggestion from the staff meeting was to continue their surveys, though many Traditional Enclaves were still loath to admit technology-carrying outsiders.

            One sensor scan from the ship, even one tricorder sweep on the ground, might tell the _Enterprise_ all they needed to know.  But their hands were tied.

            He sighed again and moved restlessly beside her.  She looked up at him, all sympathy.  “Maybe I should continue that records search,” she said half to herself.

            “Hmm?”  He was barely paying attention, his mind half on Data and half on the softness of her skin where the tunic slipped from her shoulder.

            “The records search,” she repeated, her voice quickening.  “What if Data planted that picture in the newspaper somehow, as a message to us?  Perhaps there are other pictures, too, other clues that haven’t degraded!”  She hurried to his console.  The computer had, at her order, stopped its review at the first picture that matched its parameters.  Now she instructed it to continue, using both images, Data’s own name and the name it had reconstructed from the article.

            “This could take a while,” she remarked to no one in particular.

            Hands kneaded her shoulders and she realized just how tense her discovery had made her.  D’Sora relaxed and leaned her head back to look up at La Forge’s devilish smile.  “I want to find Data,” he declared, “ but I won’t mind if the survey takes another couple of hours.”

            It took far longer than that but turned up nothing.

            She reported the results at the staff meeting the next morning; it added to the general depression.  So far, there was nothing to suggest Data had survived past early 1995.

            Data might have gone into hiding, Troi suggested.  It was possible he had managed to construct a timer beacon like the one that triggered his awakening on Omicron Theta.  “We may not be giving him enough credit.  He may have found, during all his studies, that one particular location on Earth was untouched by the worst of the destruction.”

            They perked up a little.  “I like that idea,” Riker chimed in.  “Data of all people would remember a fact like that.  And I’d bet he could construct a beacon from primitive materials.”

            “If that were the case,” Worf growled, “then why has the beacon not reactivated him?  He knows when he was abducted by Q—”

            “Maybe not, Worf,” Crusher broke in, “if Q affected his memory somehow.  If Data clearly remembers finding the _Vico_ , for example, but has only partial memories thereafter, he may assume he was taken from a point even further along the timeline.  In order to avoid paradox, he may have set this beacon to waken him months, even years, past his last distinct memory.”

            While the rest talked, La Forge had studied more of the download from Earth.  There were some significant anomalies versus the ship’s files, most of them in the area of cybernetics.

“I don’t think he made one.”  The flat statement surprised everyone, and he explained the discrepancies in the records. 

            “How can that be?” asked Crusher.  “They ought to be exactly the same.”

            “They should be, but they aren’t,” the engineer said.  The best example was a company called ClairTech.  In the ship’s database, the company and five subsidiaries were bankrupt by 1997 and their still-wealthy founder, Maxwell Sinclair, was a virtual recluse.

            The downloaded records told a much rosier tale.  ClairTech, still a going concern, had introduced a prototype of a sophisticated “intellibot,” an intelligent robot, in 1996.  Production started in 1997 and the robots helped clean up much of the aftereffects of the Eugenics Wars.

            From that point on, intellibots were a small but significant part of Earth’s history, fighting battles in World War III and exploring space instead of humans.  The Federation had only one-third as many members and its records started a hundred years later than the original founding date, because the robots made first contact with many species that found dealing with artificial constructs offensive, even frightening.  That fear took three-quarters of a century to overcome.  The conflicts with the Romulans and the Klingons lasted longer, with even more devastation.

            And far from being independent, intellibots held the most menial and hazardous of jobs.  Bruce Maddox’s dream of an army of Datas had come true—centuries before Data’s “birth.”

            The most telling thing, from La Forge’s point of view, was that Noonien Soong was no longer listed as the greatest cyberneticist who ever lived.  Maxwell Sinclair was.

            “This isn’t right,” La Forge told them.  “And it’s wrong because this Sinclair somehow figured out what Data is, got his hands on him, and used him as the basis for his own so-called breakthroughs.  The dates can’t be coincidence.”  The chief engineer looked Picard full in the face.  “If we don’t go back and get Data, sir, he _is_ going to die.  And history _will_ change.”

 

            Pensive, Picard sipped at a cooling cup of Earl Grey.  After La Forge’s revelations, the captain retired to his ready room and contacted Starfleet Command.  He explained the changes in history and asked permission to make the journey into the past, but Admiral Brataxu as much as called him a liar and refused.  This while his pet intellibot, who bore a primitive resemblance to Data, poured coffee and swept up crumbs and stared mindlessly at its master for instructions.

            Brataxu, of course, had no intellibot in the real timeline.  No more than the _Enterprise_ was half-crewed by intellibots, as D’Sora’s downloaded records indicated it was.

            His ship, the only thing unaffected by the revisions in history?  It was alarming.  He might even say, to himself, it was damned frightening.  How in hell could it happen?

            White light flashed before his eyes.  _Of course,_ Picard thought.  _This is how._

            “Hello, Jean-Luc,” said Q.  He leaned against the bulkhead, arms crossed.  “You look troubled.”  His voice sounded less compassionate than delighted.  “Anything I can do to help?”

            “Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,” replied Picard as he set down his cup with a clatter.  “You can put everything back the way you found it.  Including my second officer and the whole history of the Federation!”

            “Naughty Jean-Luc, raising your voice at a superior officer,” Q chastised him.  He strolled over and lolled on the ready room couch.

            “Your behavior has been neither superior nor worthy of any officer who wears that uniform!” the captain thundered.  “You have taken an innocent man, transported him back in time for some purpose of your own, endangered him and his shipmates, even the history of interstellar contact throughout the quadrant!”  Picard’s frustration raked the unconcerned entity.  “That you should do this to _Data_ , of all people, after he saved your life—!”

            _“Enough!”_ shouted Q in a voice that shook non-existent rafters.  He went on in a milder tone, “I picked Data precisely because I was grateful for his help.  He was, after all, the only person on this entire ship who cared whether I lived or died.  For that, he deserved the chance to…expand his boundaries.  Now he’s getting that chance.

            “As for the rest, well, it seems Data shares more with you overgrown primates than a face only a mother bonobo could love.  He also has your unequaled ability to get into trouble.”

            “Then since you put him where he could get into trouble, Q,” the captain suggested icily, “perhaps you would be so kind as to get him out!”

            Q shook his head.  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, _mon capitaine_.  There’s only one person who can help Data now, besides Data.  You.”

            Picard was nonplused.  “I don’t understand.”

            Rolling his eyes, the entity said, “Things have moved in an unanticipated direction.  I am prohibited by the Continuum from taking action.  But you’re not.”  He glared at the human behind the desk.  “Don’t be so blind!  You’ve shown some amazing talent for intelligent thought.  Infrequently, true, but shown it nonetheless.”  Q ignored the answering glare in Picard’s eyes.

            “You want to know why everything has changed around the _Enterprise_ , but the ship remains the same?  I tell you now that if you can reason this puzzle out with that minuscule cellular conglomeration you laughingly call a brain, you have the chance to return everything to its proper place.  Including Data.  Otherwise,” and he smiled quite unpleasantly, “you’d better start reading up on that new history.”  And then he was gone.

            Picard, after a little thought, took the only cogent piece of advice Q offered, going over every detail of Data’s disappearance and the seeming coincidences that led them back to Earth.  He recalled all he knew of time travel, both in theory and practice.

            The first time trip, made by the first U.S.S. _Enterprise_ , was the accidental result of a close pass to a black hole, but the second and third trips were intentional.  Then there was the discovery of the planet holding a gateway into time called the Guardian of Forever.  Picard concentrated harder.  Something, some wriggling hint of an idea, was starting to push forward.

            Why, he asked himself again, were _they_ unchanged?  Why, if history had already changed, were they the only ones to know?  He should know this, and he felt as if he did, but why?

            The answer was not forthcoming.  The feeling that time was of the essence made him tap his fingers rhythmically on the desktop for a few moments.  Then he reached a decision, tugged his shirt down, and went to Ten-Forward.

 

* * *

 

            New Year’s Day was stunning and the Rose Parade was, as usual, glorious.

            The group including Data and Dae managed to elude the crush at the end and headed to Doc and Cluny’s for brunch.

            Data wondered what he and Dae would do.  After last night’s comment, she was silent on the subject.  He knew they were slated to stay for brunch, go see the floats, and watch the football game.  In other words, a happy but tiring day for Dae.  So would she say yes if he asked again, ask for a delay, or agree when she wished to decline?  He was motivated to find out, but cautious, too.

            Brunch was pleasant.  The floats were beautiful and reminded him of his sand painting, nature turned to the expression of the human imagination.  Then they went back to Doc’s.

            It was nearly game time.  Data glanced at Dae and surprised her looking at him with an expression on her face he had never seen.  He gazed at her with solemn eyes.  Her smile grew.

            “Cluny, thanks for the wonderful brunch and the use of your home,” Dae said as she put her arm through Data’s.

            “You’re leaving?” Cluny asked in surprise.  When she looked from one to the other, though, she grinned to herself.  “Well, all right, but we’ll miss you for the game.  Drive carefully.  Madoc, Dae and Dana are leaving!”  He came in from the kitchen and hugged Dae, shook Dana’s hand, gave the pair a risqué wink and told them to have fun.

            Data drove, conscious of Dae’s eyes on him.  They returned home, fed the cats.  When she went into the living room, he went too, and found her sitting on a cushion on the hearth.

 

* * *

 

            Picard glanced toward the bar.  Guinan was there, but she had an uncanny knack for knowing when he wanted to talk.  She met his eyes and they took seats by a viewport.

            “He was here, wasn’t he?” she demanded.  Q was the only entity Picard had ever seen who could ruffle the bartender’s otherworldly composure.

            He nodded.  “And what he told me…frankly, I’m having trouble believing it.”  Her dark face was impassive as he explained and ended with a muffled curse, “Then he implies that the _Enterprise_ is responsible for the changes unless we act, that we are somehow the linchpin for them.  But I cannot fathom why he said it, and Starfleet has forbidden us to act.”

            Guinan’s eyes met his.  “Eye of the hurricane.”  She flickered a smile.  “You do know.  You don’t want to believe it because it doesn’t fit your expectations of an orderly universe.”

            “You’re right,” he admitted.  “The _Enterprise_ is at the eye of a hurricane, but a temporal one.  While our decision is in flux, the eye is stable.  Like…”  He snapped his fingers.  “Like Kirk’s discovery of the Guardian of Forever!  When their ‘present’ vanished, they knew because they were at the moment of the change!”  Guinan nodded.  “But once the decision is made, the eye will expand until the hurricane disappears, or the storm will close in and obliterate it.  But why—”

            “Data is at the heart of it, Picard.  In what is now his time, he’s become a temporal locus.  On him lives or dies the history of Earth as you know it.”  In silence, he agreed.  The changes they had seen were too obviously related to the android.  “You don’t need me to tell you what you have to do.  You already know that, too.”

            “Thank you, Guinan,” Picard said.  “You’ve managed to put the question into your usual focus.  Picard to La Forge.”

            “La Forge here.”

            “Geordi, I want you to begin the necessary calculations to perform the light-speed breakaway maneuver around Sol.  We’re going after Data.”

            The grin on the chief engineer’s face was clear even over the comm link.  “I’m already on it, Captain.  I started it as an exercise.  Just in case.”

            Picard and Guinan traded looks.  “My compliments on your foresight.  When you’re ready, we’ll meet in the observation lounge.  Picard out.”  He stood up and straightened his shirt with a fierce tug.  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to brief Will.  Thank you again, my friend.”  She smiled as he headed out of the bar with far more purpose than he had entered.

            The bartender returned to her duties and made a note to put away everything breakable before the temporal jump.  From what she had heard, they were fairly bumpy, and cleaning up broken glass was not her cup of Mareuvian tea.

 

            Complex formulae filled the wall display.  La Forge broke down each piece of the calculation.  This was their trajectory, passing to within a few kilometers of the sun’s corona to get the needed gravitational “kick” through time, and there, the matter-antimatter flow rate.

            “Now all of this works in theory, in the computer simulations I’ve run,” La Forge was saying.  “But it’s never been tried by a ship as large as the _Enterprise_.  We’re going to be treading a very fine line between powering the warp drive and making sure the deflectors and structural integrity fields have enough energy to keep us from flying apart at the seams.”

            “What about our arrival?” asked Crusher.  “According to the old mission records, temporal transition left the crew unconscious.  There was no one who could check to be sure the braking thrusters fired.  And how can we be sure we won’t arrive too early—or too late?”

            La Forge smiled.  “I’ve got this programmed with sextuple redundancy, Doctor.  There’d have to be a complete breakdown of all three computer cores to put us in danger.  And our engines and computer are both more powerful and more versatile than any other ship’s that tried this.  I’m willing to bet the _Enterprise_ gets to the right time within a couple of months, or less.”

            The plan was fairly straightforward.  Make the jump, arriving as close to January 2, 1995 as possible, find Data and jump home again.  Easy as cosmic hopscotch.

            Worf suggested that the end of the transition should put the ship in a parking orbit on the far side of the moon.  Scanning for Data through the moon might be more difficult, but it would hide them from the period’s primitive sensing devices—not to mention the telescopes.

            Troi looked serious as she said many of the crew had guessed something unusual was in the works.  Curiosity, concern for Data, and uneasiness ran neck-and-neck belowdecks.  She advised the captain to authorize shore leave on Earth.  “More shore leave, Counselor?” he asked mildly.  “Command will think I’m going soft.”

            “In this case, sir, it’s more a matter of protection.”  She gave him a steady and professional gaze.  “What we’re going to attempt, besides having been strictly prohibited by Starfleet in general, and to us in particular,” she said, lest they forget they were planning to violate direct orders, “is a very dangerous maneuver.  I think it’s only fair to explain to the crew and offer them the chance to get their families off the ship.”  She took a deep breath.  “And if by some chance we fail to retrieve Data before the changes occur, then it’s entirely possible we’ll all face general courts-martial when we return.  We cannot force the crew into such a situation.”

            She was right, of course.  When La Forge reported everything was as ready as it could be, Picard made the announcement in his succinct fashion and gave permission for any who wished to disembark.

            There was not a single leave request.  Riker grinned at the captain with pride.

            “Very well,” Picard decided with a decisive pull to his uniform.  “No time like the present.  Or the past.  Mr. La Forge, please transmit your coordinates and speed recommendations to the conn.”  Ro checked her panel and confirmed.  “All hands, battle stations.”  He seated himself more securely as the red-alert alarms sounded.  “Engage.”

            The engines whined and flung them toward the sun.

 


	28. Chapter 28

28

 

 

            He sat beside her.  Lifting her arms around his neck, Dae gently pulled him closer.

            If Jenna’s first kiss ranked as “very passionate,” Dae’s would have to be classed at some higher level.  Say, “incendiary.”

            Data felt her tremble and asked what was wrong.  “Nothing,” she murmured.  “I just feel…shivery.”

            He cocked his head, interrupting their osculation.  “Shivery is good?”

            “Trust me, Data, in this context, shivery is wonderful!”  Her breathless whisper was at least as convincing as her immediate resumption of the action in question.

            Data made a running comparison of her responses, judged them against not just her own earlier responses, but Jenna’s and Tasha’s, too.  They were strongly positive.  He wished to give her more happiness than his futile attempts at romance had given Jenna, hoped she would feel the same satisfaction Tasha experienced.  But what if Dae did not enjoy the experience?

            W _hy should she not?_ part of his mind asked of that which doubted.  _My programming—_

            _—may be insufficient,_ he reminded himself.  He never had the chance to demonstrate most of it to Jenna, because his lack of emotions reinforced, for her, his lack of humanity.

            And another piece of the human equation fell into place.  He certainly recognized that each person was an individual, but he never realized the power individuality would exert over intimate encounters.  One could not make a prior experience a rigid template for the next, because each partner would be different.  One’s sense of self might also be different, as his was now.

            So he pulled away a little and waited for Dae to open her eyes.  He gazed into their smoky depths and said, “Dae, I must remind you of my limitations in this area.  Whatever you feel, you will feel it alone.  I cannot share it with you.  I will—I hope I will,” he amended, “be able to provide you with appropriate assurances of my regard, but I will feel nothing, and my physical responses will only be programmed ones.  If you ever find yourself unable to accept these limitations, you have only to tell me, and I will immediately end all pretense of romance.”

            She looked at him for a full minute.  “I know,” she said.  “And I hope it won’t concern you if I sometimes feel sorry that you can’t share it completely.  But in romance, as in the rest of life, there are no guarantees.”  Dae brushed her lips along his jaw, then worked her way back to his lips and smiled.  “We’ll just have to get used to each other in different ways, that’s all.”

            She was touching his eyelids with her lips now, soft, butterfly touches.  “Yes, there are things that are beyond you, but they won’t always be.  You might find Lore and get back the chip with your emotions.  You could spontaneously generate emotions on your own.  You could find the secret in your father’s research.”  Each thought she punctuated with another feathery caress.  “Personally, I’d rather concentrate on possibilities than limits.  There’s so much more room for growth,” she ended with a purr.

            “Then at what pace do you wish our interaction to proceed?”

            “Slowly,” she said.  “I’m a little afraid.  Not of you,” she assured him, “of the ultimate revelation of self, I think.  I’ll get over it.  One more thing?”  He nodded.  “About the makeup…”

            Data thought he understood.  “You wish me to apply additional colorant, to appear more human during our encounter.  As you wish.”  He leaned to her but she shook her head.

            “I not only don’t want you to wear _more_ makeup, I don’t want you to wear any.”  Data slowly returned her smile, then crossed his eyes to follow the finger she traced down his nose.  “You’re gorgeous just the way you are, Data.”

            Data offered to prepare a special meal in celebration of their pending union.  Dae thought it a very sweet idea and agreed, even though it meant they had to postpone things so he could go to the store.  Until then, they curled up on a sofa and spent the intervening time engaged in what the android’s database informed him was colloquially known as “necking,” though in fact their necks played only a peripheral part in the proceedings.

 

* * *

 

            The ship shot past Pluto.  Worf, the first one on the bridge to wake, dragged himself up to check readings.  Riker was next, and the ship’s screaming vibrations warned him that one part of the plan failed.  They were far beyond the moon, and not just moving but accelerating.

            “Bridge to La Forge,” the first officer croaked.  He checked on the captain and Troi, relieved at their strong pulses.  “Riker to Engineering!  Geordi, what’s happening?”

            The chief engineer sounded sick.  “Automatic braking failed, sir.  Antimatter injectors are frozen open.  We’re at warp eight and climbing.”  Through a din that sounded like the ship tearing itself to pieces, Riker barely heard La Forge.  “I have to run an emergency warp core shutdown, or the engines’ll shred themselves.”

            Picard had come around enough to hear the last remark.  “Make it so, Mr. La Forge!”

            Another minute passed before they felt the ship slow and the shudders decrease.  “Warp seven-point-five,” the recovering Macombrey reported at Ops.  “Warp six-point-nine.  Warp six.”

            The _Enterprise_ continued to slow.  “Conn, can you take us back?” Riker asked.

            “Helm responding, sir,” Ro replied, shaken.  “Course to Terra’s moon laid in, and engaged.”

            At least they were headed in the right direction again.  The engine shutdown underway, they coasted back towards Earth at a leisurely warp two and falling, then dropped into sublight.

            “Mr. La Forge, what’s our status?” the captain asked.

            “Warp engines are off-line, Captain,” replied La Forge.  “It looks like they took quite a beating.  It’ll take two or three weeks to repair, recalibrate, and run the start-up sequence.”

            “Your best speed, Commander,” the captain encouraged him.  “I don’t want to loiter.”

            “Ship’s status, Mr. Worf?” asked Riker.  It was good, considering:  of seventy-three injuries, only four were major, and though there was heavy damage to the sensor arrays, they were not completely blind.

            There was only one question left.  Picard asked it.  “Mr. Macombrey, _when_ are we?”

            Macombrey scanned the frequencies cluttering the airwaves.  After a couple of minutes he reported, “Based on the contents of the broadcasts I’m monitoring, Captain, it seems to be 0758 Greenwich Mean Time on…January 1, 1995.”  The bridge broke into spontaneous applause.

            “It seems we must congratulate Mr. La Forge on an excellent piece of programming, Number One.  We not only arrived within two months, we arrived within two days.”

            As Data kissed Dae beneath the mistletoe on New Year’s Eve, the _Enterprise_ parked on the moon’s far side.

 

* * *

 

            Naomi Enderson leaned back in her chair, a satisfied smile wreathing her face.  There was no trace of Dana Oliver in any database, which was suspicious in and of itself.  But the woman….

            Dae Hutchins was about to be gift-wrapped for Max Sinclair.

 

            Data went to the store about half past four.  Dae had her own tasks while he was out.

            The cats, their food and water, and their sandboxes went into the office.  She remade her bed with a set of lace-edged silk sheets.  Saved for a special occasion, she thought the coming evening would qualify.

            She showered and applied her favorite perfume.  The evening deserved only her best lingerie.  Dae chuckled as she checked the seams of her sheer silk hose and put on a satin slip.  She knew just which dress to wear and slipped it on, then checked her reflection again.

            She styled her hair into a French twist held in place with a gold comb.  A touch of mascara went on her lashes and deep rose lipstick accented her smile.  Dae needed no artificial blush, for her cheeks blushed enough on their own, and her eyes sparkled.  Jewelry?  Her mother’s diamond ring and the things Data had given her in Las Vegas, that was all.  She slipped on a pair of high-heeled pumps and turned down the bed, adding a light spray of cologne to the sheets and pillows.

            Dae set the table with fine linen, her best silver, crystal flutes, and her grandmother’s china.  When it suited her, she built up the fire, stared into the flickering glow and dreamed of seeing Data, all of him, by firelight.  She programmed the disc player with music to last the night.

            For a seduction scene, she doubted a screenwriter could have come up with anything better.

            The doorbell rang.

 

* * *

 

            Twenty-four hours of scans failed to locate Data.  Radio, television, cordless and cellular phones, paging devices, leakage from power plants, and radar, all zipped through the planet’s atmosphere.  Not a problem with fully operational sensors, but having to scan through an astral body while handicapped by the transition’s damage, one android was a small target indeed.

            Had they known even where to concentrate the bulk of their scans, it would have helped.  Unfortunately, the computer reconstruction of the news article gave them few clues.

            The engines were still down but La Forge scaled back his repair estimate from three weeks to sixteen days.  Second priority was getting the sensors back into top condition.

            Worf went off duty, Crusher’s orders that he not tax himself too much despite his clearance for duty making him graceless as he strode into the turbolift.

            D’Sora continued the scans.

 

* * *

 

            Dae pulled herself away from her musings to deal with the unwelcome interruption.  It was Tatiana, who apologized for bothering her but two light bulbs had gone out and she had trouble on stepladders, could Dae please help?

 

            In the office, Cin heard chirping in the closet.  It had begun a week ago, but Dae never heard it and Data chose to ignore it.

            The cat thought an interesting new toy was behind the sliding door.  He found a long white cord snaking into the closet, and batted at it.  When it didn’t move, he grew bolder and got one claw into the edge of the wooden door.  Thinking himself caught, he struggled for freedom and pushed the door open a fraction more.

            Now he could get his whole paw in the opening.  Cin was nothing if not dedicated and threw himself into the task with zeal.  At last there was space enough to scramble into the closet.

            He found a boxy thing from which the chirps came so, in the best catlike tradition, he sniffed it, batted at it, and walked on it.  He trod on the switch and was startled when it tilted under his paw.  It made no threatening move, so he continued his exploration.  He stepped on the switch again and it rocked under the pressure of his foot.

            The current came on.  The sarium krellide battery drank in the charge and stopped chirping.  Cinnamon lost interest and crawled out of the closet.

            The communicator, sufficiently charged, resumed its standard automatic signal broadcast.

 

            Data wheeled his cart up and down the aisles.  He designed a menu to provide an adequate nutritional balance, and used his knowledge of physiology to forecast the menu’s probable impact on Dae’s responses.  Too, the ambiance of an intimate meal would have its own effects on the subsequent encounter.

            The android wished he could _feel_ the anticipation he sensed in his neural pathways, and guided the cart to the wine section.

 

* * *

 

            Nearly forty-two hours into the mission, the tactical console beeped.  “Commander,” Worf said in growing shock, “I am getting a signal from the planet!”

            Riker turned.  “We’re being _hailed?”_

            “No, sir,” the Klingon corrected.  “I am reading an automatic communicator broadcast from the surface.”  He ran through the readings on his console.  “The frequency matches the one assigned to Commander Data at the time of his disappearance!”

            “Captain to the bridge!” the first officer called.  Picard appeared, still pulling on his jacket, and Riker made his report.

            “Mr. Macombrey!” snapped Picard.  “Scan the location of the comm signal.”

            “Scanning, Captain.  It’s a structure.  Five life signs, non-human, inside one room.  No other life signs inside, and no readings that match Commander Data’s.”

            A communicator and no owner.  It was a mystery, but only a minor one.  If Data’s communicator still worked, perhaps Data was nearby.  The captain made his decision.  “I have the bridge.  Prepare your Away Team, Will.  If he’s down there, find him.  If you need to go outside the structure, come back and we’ll see to the necessary costumes.”

            “Worf, you’re with me,” the first officer replied as he climbed the ramp.  “Riker to La Forge, Riker to D’Sora.  Report to transporter room three for Away Team duty.”  Picard took the command chair.  Soon their prodigal would return.  He smiled and wondered what Data would say to the news that a fatted calf had been prepared for him.  By replicator, of course.

            La Forge reached the transporter room a minute after the others.  He carried his tricorder and a case twice the size of a portable medkit.  Riker looked at it and raised his eyebrows.  “A repair kit, sir,” the engineer explained.  “Just in case.”

            The first officer nodded and turned to O’Brien at the transporter controls.  “Put us down in the same part of the structure as the comm signal, Chief.”

            “Aye, sir,” he replied, adjusting the coordinates as the team stepped on the pad.  “It might be tricky; the place seems a little crowded and those beasties don’t stay in one spot very long.  But I’ll try to keep you on level ground.”  Riker gave the order to energize.

 

            Dae spent twenty minutes talking with Tatiana as she replaced the dead light bulbs.  Tatiana noticed the dress and jewelry and asked what she and Data had planned.

            She only smiled, and Tatiana laughed.

 

            Crowded, La Forge thought when they materialized, wasn’t the half of it.

            It looked like some kind of office.  Loaded bookshelves fought for space with rack upon rack of electronics.  Several sheets of letterhead bearing the name “Computer Consultations, Inc.” sat in precise order beside the antique monitor.  The cats took one look at the intruders and scrambled out of sight.

            While La Forge concentrated on the racked equipment and D’Sora plotted the structure in detail, Worf holstered his phaser and swung his tricorder from side to side.  A telltale spike led him to the closet, where he found the recharger being guarded by a cat with brown and white fur and unblinking gold eyes.  The Klingon reached for the device.  The cat growled and spat.

            Worf growled back.  The cat scrambled further into the closet.  With a small grunt of satisfaction, Worf picked up the device.  “Here is Data’s communicator,” he told the others, his voice low.  La Forge tore himself away from the racks to inspect it.

            “That’s Data’s handiwork, all right,” he agreed.  “And so’s that.”  He waved at the electronics.  “It looks like he’s used available components to build his own supercomputer.  I don’t know how he managed to get something this sophisticated out of such primitive parts.”

            They checked the closets and found art supplies and drawings in one.  The other held a selection of shirts and trousers.  Riker jerked his head toward the door.  Worf went first, muffling a ferocious sneeze, and opened the door to peer down the hall.

            The Klingon led the way into what they assumed was the main living area.  Riker approved the sultry jazz coming from the speakers and grinned to see the crackling flames.  The scent of the fire brought back pleasant memories of his Alaskan boyhood.

            The officers noted the formal setting in the dining room, checked the kitchen and pantry, and went back to give the primitive sanitary facilities a cursory check.  There was only one more room inside the residence.  La Forge’s heart pounded in his throat.  _If Data’s not in here…_ he thought, and shook his head to force the thought away.  Worf opened the door.

            If the fire in the living room made Riker grin, the ambiance in the bedroom brought to mind a different set of thoughts altogether.  An exotic scent clung to the bed, its turned-down spread an open invitation.  “Commander,” D’Sora said, “here.”  She opened the door of the closet.  It held a quantity of female clothing, several jackets that seemed to be male attire, and two Starfleet uniforms hanging side by side.  The woman’s was a passable copy, but the man’s version was the genuine article, and a pair of Starfleet-issue boots stood on the floor.

            Riker tapped his comm badge.  “No sign of Data yet, Captain,” he reported, “but he’s definitely been here.  We’ve found his communicator and uniform, and Geordi says an array of electronic equipment in the other room shows Data’s ingenuity.  We’ve—”

            Macombrey broke in.  “Someone’s headed your way from the structure next to you, Commander.” 

Picard ordered the channel remain open.  “All of you, keep out of sight, and keep quiet,” Riker whispered to his team.  The front door opened and closed.

            Neither side of the comm link made a sound.  Footsteps clicked toward the hall, paused, then moved away.  La Forge released a breath and pointed his tricorder toward the living room.

            Silently, Riker gestured to the others that they were going to have a look.  They crept into the hall and risked a peek through the doorway.

 

            Dae left Tatiana with all her lights on and went back to the house.  She shivered—the weather had turned wintry again.  Dae smiled, knowing she would soon be as warm as she could wish.  She turned on the Christmas tree lights, adjusted the volume on the sound system, then leaned against the mantel, eyes closed and enticing visions filling her mind.

            Anticipation swept over her.  Maybe she should forget the window dressing, greet Data wearing a grin and not much else?  She gave a luxurious stretch and made minor adjustments to her ensemble.  When she heard a floorboard creak, she smiled in delight, assuming she’d been too wrapped up in her imagination to hear Data’s return.  She opened her eyes.

            And the expectation of joy fled, replaced by the most terrible loneliness she had ever felt.

 

            Riker raised his eyebrows.  A young woman, eyes closed, leaned against the wall beside the fireplace.  She had dark hair done up off her shoulders.  The dress she wore was the tawny color of vintage cognac.  Its wide neckline was just off her shoulders, and the soft fabric accented her curves.  She wore pearl earrings, and a pearl pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat.

            Eyes still closed, the woman stretched her arms above her head and smiled.  As she brought her hands down again, she smoothed the dress and rearranged the neckline, making it just a bit more décolleté.  Then she reached up and took a gold comb from her hair to let the burnished chestnut waves tumble loose.  She set the comb on the mantel, her left hand fingering the pearl drop.  The officers saw the gleam of a slim gold band on her third finger.  Trading glances, they made a unanimous decision to retire to the bedroom and risk transport.

            La Forge stepped back.  A board creaked.  D’Sora shot a look at the woman.

            With a smile of joy, she opened her eyes and saw the Away Team.

            Her eyes locked with Riker’s, then flicked aside to take in the others.  The joy left her face, replaced by several things in quick succession.  They were prepared for the shock, the surprise, and even expected fear—the last woman from this era to set eyes on Worf had fainted.  Twice.  But there was no fear in her eyes.  That confused Riker.

            The crushing despair he saw confused him even more.

            Finally she spoke.  “Commander Riker?” she asked, a quaver in her voice.

            Now it was his turn to look surprised, and she managed a slight smile.  Her eyes on the chief engineer, she went on, “You must be Geordi La Forge.  And you can only be Lieutenant Worf, and…Lieutenant D’Sora.”  She cleared her throat and self-consciously pulled her neckline up to cover her shoulders, then cut the music.  “I’m Dae Hutchins.  Data’s out, but he’ll be back soon.”  Bitterness traced the words.  “You may as well wait.  Won’t you sit down?”

            Worf nodded courteously and the other three shook hands with her.  “Can I get you anything to drink?  A nibble of something?  Data’s at the grocery store, we needed a few things for dinner, why don’t you join us?”  It came out in a rush and she took a deep breath.

            The Away Team was shocked.  Riker said, “Captain, do you copy?”

            Dae’s brows went up as a very dignified voice, elegant but holding the power of command, came through the communicator.  “Yes, Number One.  Though the image of Data at a grocery store is one I’m having trouble visualizing.  Permission granted.  Picard out.”

            “Thank you for your kind invitation, Miss Hutchins,” the first officer said with a reassuring smile.  Even without Troi’s empathic talents, he could tell she was upset.

            Another smile, even more nervous, touched her face.  “What would you like to drink?  I have plenty, but Data usually tends bar, so if you want anything really fancy I’m afraid you’ll have to mix it yourselves.”

            “Whiskey and soda?” Riker asked, and she nodded.  La Forge asked for the same.

            “Sherry for you, Lieutenant D’Sora?”  D’Sora, startled, nodded.  “And what about you, Lieutenant Worf?” Dae asked.  “I have a few bottles of stout, if you’d care to try it.”  He thought the name sounded promising—human whiskey had too little flavor to suit his palate—so he accepted.  Dae headed to the kitchen.

            _What can I feed them to tide them over?_ she thought, the host’s dilemma overriding her more basic and selfish concerns.

            Like how utterly, utterly rotten their timing was.

            She cursed that timing as she poured their drinks and raided the fridge for an assortment of leftovers from the prior day’s buffets.  She nearly jumped out of her skin when La Forge said behind her, “Can I help you carry anything, Miss Hutchins?”

            “Never sneak up on a cook holding a knife, Commander,” she gasped.  “You were almost part of the hors d’oeuvres.”  When her hands stopped shaking, she resumed shaving thin slices of smoked salmon.  That, some pumpernickel, dips and fresh veggies, a little ham…Dae had yet to answer his question.  “Thanks, you can take in the drinks while I warm some of this up.”  She set the glasses on a tray along with the rest of the bottle of stout, trembling like a rabbit in a trap.

            “Miss Hutchins,” La Forge said in a very gentle voice.  He had seen the wild physiological shifts her emotions wrought.  Shaking hands covered her face.  “Miss Hutchins, I’m sorry we scared you.  We didn’t account for your being here.  We’d hoped to find Data by himself and—”

            “And take him away,” she whispered.  She had no need to see his nod.  They would take him, of course.  They had come for him, and they would take him, and she would never see him again, and they would never—  She gave another gasp, then straightened and forced herself to at least look calm.  Clearing her throat again, she asked him to take in the tray and turned to add some plates and silverware to it.  He left her hustling the rest of the impromptu cocktail party together and wondering how to survive the next hours.

            She had a glass of ice water and nibbled at her own hors d’oeuvres, gradually relaxing.  Resigning herself to the inevitable was more like it.  At least they were an entertaining group.  Of course, based on Data’s descriptions, she expected that.

            The officers all wondered exactly what was going on.  The table settings, the bedroom, the wedding band, combined with her distress at seeing them, suggested some fairly amazing things.

            Conversation stayed mostly away from the subject of Data, but everyone’s thoughts were on him, and when Dae heard his motorcycle in the driveway, the urge to rush out, tell him Max was there waiting for him, climb on behind him and have him race away, nearly overpowered her.  She heard the gate open, the bike power up the drive.  Now he would be taking off his helmet, bringing in his purchases.  She heard his hand on the knob.

 

            Data finished his shopping and headed home.  He hoped Dae would be pleased by his selections.  He had tried to tailor the meal to her preferences, even splurged on two baskets of imported raspberries, knowing she loved them.  Their scents indicated they would be very sweet.  Dae should find them appealing.

            He hoped, for a brief moment, that she would find him equally appealing, and wondered if this was an example of vanity.

            He pulled into the back yard and parked in the garage beside Dae’s car, since the removal of her mother’s furniture had opened up some space.  He shut the gate, took off his helmet and smoothed his wig into shape in a single efficient motion, then took his bags from the panniers.  His brisk walk slowed in the middle of the patio and he glanced back to the garage’s side door, recalling how Malta used to bound out to greet him.  Data allowed himself a sigh.

            As soon as he opened the back door, he smelled the food and beverages and called out, “Honey?  I’m home!”  Though she preferred him as himself, she was fond of saying, a change was fun now and then, so sometimes he used the phrase he had said to Jenna, because Dae liked it.

He heard her strained laughter, and she called, “Data?  Don’t drop the eggs, sugar, but your rescue party’s here.”  The android darted into the living room, grocery bags in each arm and two bottles of Chateau Picard ’82 in hand.

            The Away Team stood, dumbfounded at the sight.  It looked like Data physically but the coloring was all wrong.  His hair was light brown, eyes a lively blue, skin Caucasian-human.  He wore a black leather jacket, faded blue jeans, and black tooled-leather boots.

            Data was just as stunned.  While the friends stood staring at each other, Dae sank further into despair, took the bag and bottles from the android and went to the kitchen.

            La Forge was the first to come out of his trance.  He took Data’s hand and shook it, clapped him on the shoulder, shook his hand again.  Riker and Worf added their greetings as D’Sora shyly pecked him on the cheek.  Everyone started asking questions all at once.

            In the kitchen, Dae struggled not to cry.  At least she and Data were friends instead of estranged, she could be thankful for that, anyway.  Their happy voices carried to her ears, even the forbidding Klingon sounding full of smiles.  And Data’s voice, infinitely more expressive than he gave himself credit for, threaded its way into her heart one last time.

            She stared at the food on the counter and wondered what kind of feast he had planned.  With a calming breath, she tried to slip past them to her room so she could collect herself.

            Data heard her and turned.  “Dae, where are you going?” he asked.

            Looking at her outfit, she replied, “I’m overdressed.  I’ll be out soon, don’t mind me.”

            The reunited friends glanced after her.  “Will you excuse me a moment, Commander?” Data asked Riker.  “I believe, under the circumstances, I should put on my uniform, but it is in Dae’s room.”  The first officer told him there was no hurry, but the phrase fell on empty air—the android was tapping on Dae’s door.  When he told her why he wished access, she invited him in.

            She stood facing the door, the dress held in front of her.  Her slip lay on the bed.  He shut the door, wondering why she looked at him with such intensity, and what she would do.

            What she did was slowly, deliberately, toss the dress on the bed.

            He understood the implication and thought a human male would be stunned speechless.  But Data, being Data, was neither stunned nor speechless.  “I am sorry, Dae.”  The whisper made her lower lip quiver and she buried her face in her hands.  He went to her, held her, knowing he still had too much mechanistic stiffness in his posture but that she would accept it anyway.

            Accept it she did, and embraced him in turn with a passion not even an android could mistake.  But it could not happen now, not with his friends waiting.  “I am sorry,” he repeated.

            She whispered in his ear, “I know,” and nodding to her dress went on, “but I wanted you to know how much I appreciated your idea.  You’d better change, they’re probably beginning to wonder what we’re up to.”  Dae forced herself away from him and started to take off his ring.

             “It would…please me,” Data said, “if you continued to wear it until I leave.”  Wishing he could say or do something to ease her pain, he took his uniform and left.

            Dae hurried to take off the stockings and pull on a pair of thick socks.  She felt like she was freezing, because after being in Data’s arms, nowhere else would ever feel quite so warm.  She left on both rings but put the pearls with her mother’s jewelry, feeling she’d never be able to wear them again.  Slipping on jeans, a turtleneck, and loafers, she went back to her company.

            Data joined them and suggested they move into the kitchen so he could begin dinner preparations.  Dae asked about the menu.  “Roast filet of beef,” he replied, “risotto with a ragout of onions and wild mushrooms in red wine, steamed _haricots verts_ , and a Grand Marnier soufflé with _crème anglaise_ and fresh raspberries.  I believe I can extend it to serve six with no loss of quality.”  The chef in Riker came to the fore and said it seemed an ambitious menu for an amateur.

            “Don’t bet on that ‘amateur’ part, Commander,” Dae said as she put her arm around the android.  “Your friend here is a very good cook.”  The officers’ faces showed polite disbelief and Dae grinned.  “Okay, doubting Thomases, prepare to be amazed!  What first, sugar?”

            “The risotto will require the greatest time interval,” Data replied as he filled a saucepan at the sink.  He put it over a high flame, then set a saucepan of broth on to boil.  “Both filets, Dae?”  She nodded.  “I agree.  I purchased two because the cut was sufficiently reduced in price to constitute a bargain.  I had thought to freeze the second until February.”

            She shot him a quick glance and mouthed, “Valentine’s Day?”  He nodded.  Trying not to imagine what _that_ celebration might have become, she asked what spices Data wanted and got out some dried mushrooms to augment the fresh ones.  He pushed up his sleeves.

            His crewmates looked on in amazement.  Data did seem to know what he was doing as he cracked peppercorns, mashed garlic to a paste with rosemary, then rubbed the mixture over the filets to marinate a while.

            Dae rinsed the mushrooms while the android dealt with the beef.  She put them in a deep skillet and stirred as he chopped onions.  The sight of him wielding the ten-inch chef’s knife at a blinding pace was quite impressive.

            The culinary ballet went on.  Data and Dae wove around each other with the efficiency born of long practice.  He poured the rice into the boiling water; she kept up the constant stirring that kept the risotto smooth.  She complimented the smell of the ragout; he offered a taste of it for her approval.  He took over stirring so she could gather the soufflé ingredients and put the filets in the oven.  Dae rinsed the berries next, standing at the sink back-to-back with Data as he stirred the risotto in an inhuman and precise rhythm.

            Jenna D’Sora, happy as she was with La Forge, began to wonder if maybe she’d been a bit hasty in breaking up with the android.

            “Well, Data,” La Forge admitted with admiration, “you sure seem to know your way around a kitchen, especially since you’ve only been doing this a couple of months.”

            Two faces turned to stare at him, the motions and expressions so alike it was uncanny.  “Two months?” asked the disbelieving Dae.  “Is that how long he’s been gone?”

            “No,” Riker said, “actually, he only disappeared a few weeks ago.”

            “The photograph which led us here,” put in Worf, “was part of a news story.  The text was badly corrupted but the computer was able to reconstruct some of it.  It mentioned ‘Halloween,’ which the ship’s records referred to as a celebration of the dead at the end of October.  We assume Commander Data arrived here not long before.”

            Now Data and Dae faced each other, then looked back at the others.  Data said, “I have been in this time since March 24, 1994, a period of nine months, one week, and three days.  I do not know how many hours, since I do not know how long I lay unconscious before waking.”

            “I can hardly wait to read your report,” the first officer said.  “It ought to be fascinating.”  Riker wondered again just what turns had Data’s life taken.  Dae was without a doubt the woman in the photos with him, and she wore the gold band, a symbol still used in his own time.

            Dae forced herself to converse during the incongruous party.  How could she blame them for doing their jobs, following orders, despite the fact that she was already in mourning again?  In the pause between dinner and the soufflé she asked about the article Worf had mentioned.

            He told her what he could, and it rang suddenly in her mind like an alarm.  Dae retrieved the paper and found the story.  La Forge got out his tricorder to record it.  He noticed how Dae’s hands shook as she held the paper and wondered if it was related to her earlier upset.

            It was not.  Dae said, “I’m almost glad you’re leaving, Data.  You’ll be safe from Max.  This,” and she rattled the paper, “would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”

            “I may be safe,” Data replied, the memory of Max’s plans for Dae once again in his mind, “but you may not be.  Perhaps you should think about taking an extended vacation—”

            “He didn’t want me, he wanted you.”  She shook her head.  “Once you’re gone, what’s he going to do to me?  Hold me for ransom until you give yourself up?”  Dae managed a laugh.  “Anyway, maybe he won’t see it.  I’m sure nothing will come of it.”

 

            Alec and Xavier, dispatched by Max on the heels of Naomi’s call with instructions not to call attention to themselves in any way, drove across the Los Angeles county line.  All the corporate jets were in use over the holiday except Max’s own, and he wanted no evidence of their presence on a commercial airline.  Everything had to proceed with the utmost secrecy.

 

            The soufflé and raspberries were demolished in their time, the fire stoked, coffee served, and then Riker cleared his throat.  Dae knew the end had come.

            Data asked to use La Forge’s tricorder and downloaded to that one small device his complex program and all the data he had accumulated in nine months of work.  Then he logged on the S-net and transmitted his clients’ files, along with a message of thanks for their business but the “company” was closing down.  He put Dae’s computer back as he had found it months ago and wiped the servers’ files clean.

            While Data dealt with hardware, Dae handled “software” and packed the android’s clothes.  Never much of a collector of material things, he was surprised to see just how much belonged to him.  She boxed his books, including the Robot volumes, and as an afterthought tucked in something else off the shelf, along with a quick note.  She also retrieved a portfolio and packed his paintings and drawings, and set his sand painting on the floor with the rest.

            “What shall I do with the equipment, Dae?” he asked.

            “You might as well take it with you,” she replied, her voice starting to shake again.  “I don’t even understand what you’ve done to most of it.”  She retreated to feed the cats.

            In much less time than it had taken to make the office his, he made it hers again.  Dae came in, looked around, and hated it.  Losing the sense of his presence robbed it of all its appeal.

            Riker ordered the android’s belongings beamed to his quarters.  Dae paid no attention when the whole lot shimmered and vanished.

            Data took his place beside the other officers and looked at Dae.  “Well,” Riker began, feeling more uncomfortable than ever, “we have to be leaving now.”  In his mind he visualized Picard, eaten up by curiosity and cursing the common politeness that delayed the return of his crew to its full complement.  “Thank you for taking such good care of Data, Miss Hutchins.”

            “My pleasure,” she replied in a faint voice.  “He’s an extraordinary man, Commander.  You should be glad to have him with you.”

            “We are,” La Forge assured her, and she smiled, though it looked like a weak effort.

            “Do you know where my bank records are, Dae?” asked Data.  “There are fifteen accounts, you may recall.”  Dae nodded.  “Please use the funds as you wish, with my thanks.”

            There seemed nothing left to say.  Riker asked Data to do the honors.  “Aye, sir.  In a moment.”  The android turned his golden eyes to the woman who had been his only friend for so many months.  “Will you not say good-bye to me, Dae?” he asked.

            It was all the encouragement she needed.  As he closed his arms around her, his crewmates saw that that action, too, displayed a certain practiced efficiency.  She whispered.  “I miss you already.  Take care of yourself, sugar.”

            “Please do the same, Dae.  Rest assured that I will never forget you.”  They kissed, just for a moment, and Dae backed away.

            The android tapped his communicator.  “Data to _Enterprise_.  Five to beam up.  Energize.”  He disappeared with his friends in a sparkling curtain of blue.

            Dae looked at the empty room.  Then she retrieved the newspaper article, folded it with care and tucked it into the box with her mother’s jewelry.  After putting on a pair of sweats, she made herself a nest before the fireplace.  The rest of the night she stared into the flames, watching her dreams wither as the tears she could not control streamed down her face.

 

            Picard, Crusher and Troi were in the transporter room when the Away Team beamed up with Data, and nothing would do but that they go to Ten-Forward to celebrate his return.  It turned into quite a party.  When it ended, they escorted him to his quarters, where an enraptured Spot threw herself into his arms with a purr rivaling the engines in volume.

            He made a full report of his actions during his time on Earth, except the personal details regarding Dae, which really had nothing to do with his research for Q.  Or so he told himself.

            After a long-overdue first-level diagnostic confirmed him fit, Data worked around the clock, pausing between repair crews and bridge duty only to provide food and attention to Spot, a duty Barclay seemed sad to give up.  The android reviewed the transition logs, revised the braking program and foresaw no other problems.  Besides, he would be unaffected by the transition and could monitor the process.  Everything was ready for the return trip, except the means to make it.

            But the engines could not be hurried.  The antimatter reactant injectors were locked, the port transfer conduit had to be realigned, and several field coils were fried down to their inner cores.  La Forge would have been happier replacing them, but at more than thirty-four thousand tonnes per pair, they weren’t exactly replicator-friendly.  So the surfaces had to be layered and resealed by hand, and if there was any difference in configuration in the two halves of a coil, the resulting irregularities in plasma flow could leave the ship too underpowered to make the transition, or tear it to pieces in seconds.  Picard agreed accuracy was more important than time.

            The android settled back into his routine, except for one thing.

            He hardly spoke.

            He had several methods of expressing himself.  There was his off-duty persona of wide-ranging conversation and periodic silences.  Then there was his on-duty self, who, other than occasional lapses into his “here is all I know about…” mode, spoke as needed or not at all.

            Since returning from the surface, quiet periods came more often and lasted longer.  Were he human, Troi would have called him pensive.  She had the strong idea that when Data was deep in silence, part of him was far away.  About four hundred thousand kilometers away, in fact.

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

29

 

 

            La Forge asked Data to join him in Ten-Forward one evening almost a week after his return, the first real break the android had taken in all that time.  “I’m worried about you,” the engineer said without preamble.

            Data blinked.  “According to all diagnostics, I am functioning within normal parameters, Geordi.  What is the basis for your concern?”

            “You just don’t seem like yourself, Data.  You’re too quiet, like you’re spending a lot of time thinking about something you can’t do anything about.”

            “I was unaware of any alteration in my behavior,” replied the android.  “It is an interesting observation.  I will monitor my actions more closely and attempt to conform—”

            “That’s not why I brought it up,” his friend broke in.  “I don’t expect you to conform to anything, I was wondering if something’s bothering you.”

            A brief sigh escaped Data.  “Your conjecture is most accurate.  I find myself thinking a great deal about Dae.”

            Baffled, La Forge asked, “The woman you were staying with?”

            “Yes.  She is a most unique person, intellectually stimulating, artistically gifted, and physically aesthetic.”  He paused, then said in a much lower voice, “Our relationship was on the threshold of metamorphosing into a form unlike any I have previously experienced.”

            La Forge sat in shock, the VISOR not quite able to hide the lift of his eyebrows.  “The table settings, the dinner, the bedroom—”  Embarrassment swamped him.  “You two were…oh.”

            Data nodded.  “Our first coupling was scheduled to occur after dessert.”  He paused again.  “I find myself spending an inordinate amount of my internal capacity wondering how the situation might have progressed.  Do not misunderstand,” he added, “I am pleased to be back, but I am also quite curious.  It would have been a unique experience.”

            “But you and Tasha…”  La Forge ground to a halt, even more embarrassed.

            “I was unaware that episode had become common knowledge.”

            “It’s not.  It’s just, well, after your hearing at Starbase 173, I heard Maddox talking in the station lounge about how amazed he was that you’d…”  He cleared his throat.  “I guess he thought it’d never happen to an android.  Anyway,” he finished lamely, “when you said the situation with Miss Hutchins was unique, it made me wonder.  You don’t have to explain.”

            “Thank you, Geordi.  Without going into unseemly details, my use of the word stems from the fact that my relationship with Dae _evolved_ ; it was not the result of circumstances over which neither of us had control.”  He faced the viewports.  “I became quite…used to her.”

            When the silence stretched to several minutes, Data asked La Forge to excuse him.

            His quarters were as they should be.  Neat.  Orderly.  Spartan.  Utilitarian.  He recalled the chaos of his return, his belongings from Dae’s piled high, Spot leaping from the top to greet him.

            The equipment was in storage.  Data thought the Daystrom Institute, or possibly the Smithsonian Computer Sciences Annex, might be interested in it.  The clothing could be useful for holodeck simulations or dramatic performances, and his collection of bound books was more than trebled.  His tuxedo accoutrements and gold watch lay in a drawer with his medals.

            The last memento was a video.  He had no access to a VCR, but he had watched it with Dae some months before and could recall it in detail.  A movie, the source of the tune his grandfather Ira Graves had often whistled, was Dae’s last gift to him.  That, and the note.

            _Dear Data,_ she had written, _I picked this up on the spur of the moment and thought it might make a good birthday present.  Or a Valentine’s Day present.  Or Easter—well, I’m sure you get the idea._   He did.  _But I remembered I don’t know when your birthday is, and now you aren’t going to be here for the other days—_ her hand had faltered— _so I thought you should have it now.  When you play it, think of me (and I hope you will, now and then) and know that I’m hoping you, like the Tin Woodsman, get your wish someday._

_I’ll never forget you, Data._

_All my love—_

_Dae._

            He had seen her on the periphery of his vision as he dismantled his computers, wondered at the time what she inscribed, but the duty to leave hurried him away before he could ask.

            _All my love,_ she had written.

            Data had never seen that sentiment addressed to him.  He had memories of friendship, of Tasha’s passionate embraces that he returned without feeling, of Jenna’s mild affection.  But except Lal’s filial usage, none until Dae ever used the word “love” in conjunction with him.  He was lost, wishing he had indicated sooner his interest in expanding their relationship, yet knowing he had only recognized that interest when they kissed under the mistletoe.

            Shaking his head, he shooed Spot from his console and began analyzing his collected data.

            As he waited for the results, he used his imagination.  What Dae might have done since his departure.  How she had explained his sudden disappearance after the liaison implied by their early exit from Doc’s party.  He wondered if the cats missed him.  He was curious about his former clients’ reactions.  Then his eyes widened as he voiced another thought.

            “Yes, as a matter of fact, he did,” Q said as he appeared in the opposite chair.  Spot fled and Q followed her flight with a shrug.  “Oh, well.  There’s no accounting for tastes.

            “But on to your question.  Yes, the man who planned to dissect you did see that article.”

            “Since I am no longer on the surface,” replied the confused android, “I fail to see the relevance of your observation.  It was in essence an idle thought on my part.”

            Q guffawed.  It was a shame the sound held so little humor.  “My observations are always relevant.  It’s up to you to discern why.  If you can,” he added with a sniff.  “In this case, though, I think you should hear another remark whose relevance ought to be instantly apparent.”  He leaned on the desk and gestured Data closer, his voice a confidential whisper in the android’s ear.

            “She’s dead, and it’s all your fault.”

 

            Her very own personal fog.  Dae felt she carried it with her, dank and depressing, suffocating every pleasant possibility.  Old Marley’s chains weren’t half so heavy.

            It was Saturday, late.  The series was in the midst of two weeks on location at the studio ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains.  Filming ran late as the weather changed, almost too fast to keep up.  At least the director was trying to be flexible about the order of the shots.

            Dae had volunteered to ready the makeup “trailer”—a shabby seventies-era prefab—for Monday.  Why hurry home?  She loved her pets, of course, but the one for whom she would gladly have raced off the set had been gone almost a week, and he was never coming back.

            She sniffed back tears.  Again.  “I’d make a great fire-suppression system,” she muttered sourly.  “I think of him and bam!  Enough tears to put out the Great Chicago Fire.”

            Kat noticed her depression first thing on Tuesday.  Dae said some long-lost friends of Data’s saw the photos in the paper, looked him up, offered him a job too good to refuse, and took him with them.  When Kat asked when he was due back, Dae blinked back more damned tears.

            She surveyed the trailer.  It was ready for action, and she could leave.  Elmo, the night watchman, was keeping an eye on her car.  Dae snapped on her waist pouch, then reached inside her blouse and took out a necklace of fine links.

            From it dangled her mother’s ring and the gold band from Data.  Having them with her gave her comfort.  Not much, only Data’s return could really help, but some.  She closed her hand and felt the rings warm to her touch.  Feeling suddenly suffocated by the chain, she took it off and shoved it and the rings into her pocket.  Dae turned out the lights and locked the door behind her.

            When she was out of earshot, a dark form went to the door, picked the lock and waved to another patch of darkness.  Together they entered the building.

            Dae got in her car and drove toward the guard’s booth, an oasis of brightness.  She would drive up, Elmo would check to be sure of who she was, raise the gate, wish her a safe drive, and settle back with his paper or the crossword puzzle to wait for his six o’clock relief.

            Except he was gone.  From this distance, she should have seen him smiling down at her, but the booth was empty.  Dae pressed the accelerator.  Elmo was only in his mid-fifties, but he was paunchy, with a florid face that hinted at blood-pressure problems.

            The car halted.  Hands shaking, she held her breath and opened the door of the booth.  Elmo lay huddled on the floor, mouth agape.  She checked for a pulse and sighed in relief as she felt it.  His head lolled forward and she found a lump behind his ear, and a dribble of blood.

            Who would have attacked Elmo?  He was harmless, and there was nothing of real value to steal on the ranch, he and the other guards were only there to discourage vandalism.

            Ripped-out wiring trailed from the phone box, and the gate mechanism was also mangled, so she decided to crash the gate and find a call box, wishing for once she’d joined the crowd and gotten a portable phone.  “Hang on, Elmo,” she whispered.  “I’ll be back.”  She got back in her car and reached for the ignition.  A tiny noise came from behind her, followed by something cold and very sharp pressing against her throat to draw a trickle of blood.

            “Hello, beautiful,” said a familiar voice.  “Remember me?”

            Dae glanced in the rear-view mirror.

            Xavier, hateful and grinning, licked his lips.

 

* * *

 

            Data’s eyes went wide.  He almost asked whom, but knew Q meant only one person.  “Dae,” he breathed.  “Dae is dead?”  Q’s idle glance ignored him to scrutinize his fingernails, move around the android’s quarters.  “Please explain your last remark,” Data said.

            Q’s wandering eyes fell on Data.  “Hmm?  Oh, but of course.”  A predatory grin lit Q’s face.  “I said, ‘She’s dead, and it’s all your fault.’”  He looked away again and acted quite caught up in admiring the ship schematics behind the console.

            “I asked that you explain the comment, Q, not repeat it.”  The golden eyes never blinked.

            “You understand ‘dead,’ don’t you?  Not living.  Deceased.  Defunct.  Gone from this vale of tears.  But don’t worry,” Q said.  “She never married, never had children, never did anything important.  In fact, you should be glad to have spared her such a stultifying future.”

            “But how is her death my fault?”

            “Oh, you know how Professor.  After all,” and the voice became sly, secretive.  Tempting.  “You’re supposed to be so much smarter than these poor, petty humans.  But if you really can’t figure it out, I’ll be happy to help you—for a price.”

            Humanity’s freedom.  Data knew that price, and could not accept it.  “Fine, have it your way.”  Q shook his finger under Data’s nose as he vanished.  “But remember, I offered.”

            Why would Q tell him such a thing?  And why now, when it was too late?

            Perhaps it was _not_ too late.  Data put his program analysis on hold and pulled up another set of files, the ones Jenna downloaded from the Earth that had changed because of him.

            He had the computer run a forward search on Dae’s name.  It took less than a millisecond.

            What he found sent flurries of positrons through his neural nets, a recurrence of the same patterns that motivated his attempts to cure La Forge of the Tarchannen DNA-altering virus.

            He could do no less for Dae.  “Computer, locate Captain Picard.”

            “Captain Picard is in his quarters.”  His purpose set, Data headed to a turbolift.

            Had his ears been a fraction more sensitive, the android might have heard the echo of another laugh.  This one sounded much more amused.

 

            Picard rarely unbent, even in his quarters.  He often sat at his desk in uniform, a cup of Earl Grey at his elbow, even if reading for pleasure.  But later, when shift change was past and no interruptions threatened, he would change into his short pajamas, pull a light robe around his compact, muscular frame, and let himself relax in the night-dimmed light.

            Tonight he listened to a random selection of music, Mozart and Debussy and Schubert, the notes flooding him with their beauty and complexity, so like the universe in microcosm.  He allowed a slight smile to soften his expression, and crossed one bare foot over the other.

            The door chime rang.  “Damn,” the captain muttered under his breath.  “Come.  Computer, raise lights.”  He turned in his chair and stood when he saw his visitor.

            “I am sorry to disturb you, sir,” Data began, “but I must return to the surface.”

            One never knew about Data.  Sometimes he was roundabout, sometimes he was so direct he was brutal.  Picard was glad this was one of the direct times.  “What for?  Have you recalled leaving something compromising behind?”  Picard could find no other logical reason, though the idea of Data forgetting anything, for any length of time, was not itself very logical.

            “No, sir.  It is Dae.”  The android projected a vague impatience.  Picard thought he had learned some of humanity’s mannerisms almost too well.

            “Sit down, Data.  Now who is this ‘Dae’?  The woman who sheltered you on Earth?”

            “Yes, Captain.  It is imperative that I see her.”

            Picard studied his second officer.  “Why?  You must know that no one has beamed down since the Away Team returned with you.”

            “She is in danger, sir.  If I do not help her, she will die, because of me.”  He paused.  “Dae did much more than shelter me, sir, she saved my life.  She is my friend.  I cannot let her die.”

            The captain shook his head in confusion.  “Data, how could you know—?”

            “Q told me, Captain.  I have since verified his allegation.”

            The forward search into the downloaded records found Dae’s obituary, a print article describing the manner of her death, and an ancient police report.  According to that report, Dae would be dead in less than fifty-two minutes, her body all but vaporized in a mysterious explosion and fire at the Primus Studios ranch.  Identification came from scorched bone and tooth fragments, lumps of dental amalgam, and the diamonds from her mother’s ring.

            Some of the neighbors had reported seeing two men at her home on and off during the week, including early on the evening of the fire.  Investigation showed her home had been vandalized, her mother’s valuable jewelry missing and presumed stolen.  The police files included the neighbors’ descriptions of the strangers.  Data recognized them as Xavier and Alec.

            “It seems obvious, sir,” the android continued, “that despite Dae’s ideas to the contrary, Maxwell Sinclair saw the article which led you to find me; Q said as much.  Only it led him to her instead.  He must have attempted to coerce her into revealing my whereabouts, then decided her knowledge of his interest was detrimental to his safety.  He has sufficient resources to arrange this type of fire, and his behavior toward us implies a willingness to do harm if it served his purpose.  I cannot allow Dae to perish because of me.”  Data waited for his commanding officer’s response.

            Picard hated having to give it.  “Commander,” he began, then sighed, “Data, I can’t permit you to interfere.”  He raised a hand to stem the inevitable flow of Data’s rebuttal.  “Believe me, I understand your wish to help her, but we have no way of knowing if Q’s assertions are true.  For all we know, before Q interfered, Miss Hutchins might have died elsewhere.  In the alley in which she found you, for example.  Or perhaps she lived a long time after, and records that have not survived hold the proof.  I cannot let you do anything to change history as we know it.”

            “But I already have, inadvertently, or Dae would not be in danger,” Data protested.  “If not for me, there would have been no reason for her to come to Mr. Sinclair’s attention.  Please, Captain, only forty-three minutes remain until that time when the coroner estimated her body was consumed.”  He said it with such a unique mix of logic and pleading, the captain almost gave in.

            But only almost.  “I’m sorry, Data,” said the older man, who knew the futility of defying fate and had the emotional scars to prove it.  “Permission denied.  You are not to interfere in any way, and you may consider that an order.”

            Data sat very still, then rose to his feet.  “I understand, sir.  I regret the intrusion.”

            The captain stared at the door.  “Damn.”  So much for relaxation.  He retied the robe with a brisk tug and went to the replicator.  “Steamed milk with nutmeg.  Tall.”  He took the mug and sat down at his desk.  There was always work to do until Aunt Adele’s recipe took effect.

 

            The android sat alone in Ten-Forward.  Down there, so close, a friend was going to die.  And he had to allow it.  He could not fault the captain.  It might be true that Q had lied to him.

            Somehow, though, he doubted it.  Q looked much too satisfied with himself to be lying.

            “Mind if we join you, sir?”  Data looked up to see the O’Briens, so he nodded permission.

            “How is Molly?” he asked.

            “Oh, she’s fine,” Keiko laughed.  “Running us ragged!  We just needed a little time alone.  How are you?”  She clasped her arms around her husband’s arm and hugged him.

            They caught the hesitation before he replied that he functioned within normal parameters.  “Data, what’s wrong?” asked the lovely young woman.

            He gave them a précis of his findings.  “There are now only thirty-one minutes left, and the knowledge that Dae will die, and that I am responsible, is quite difficult to assimilate.”  He paused.  “Will you excuse me, please?”  And he left, just like that.

            “That,” said O’Brien, “is a very worried fellow.  Can’t say I blame him.”

            “Me, neither,” Keiko said, hugging her husband’s arm tighter.  “I mean, knowing someone I cared about was in danger and I couldn’t help?  I think I’d go crazy.”

            “I know, sweetheart,” he replied.  “I know exactly what you mean.”  They stayed a few minutes more, then went to collect their little girl from the nursery.

 

* * *

 

            Xavier cuffed her hands before her and kept the knife at her neck.  “I’ve been looking forward to this for months.  I don’t like playing the fool.  You’re paying for that.”  He chuckled and let the knife flick a button from her blouse as they reached the makeup building.  “Well, here we are, beautiful, up you go.”  She fought him, of course, even managed to run, but Alec heard Xavier’s irritated swearing and came out to help.  Against the pair of them, she had no chance.

            Max, holding several lengths of cording, stood beside one of the makeup chairs.  Xavier allowed himself a grope before he pushed her into the chair and undid the handcuffs.  Alec tied her down, then stood, impassive, as if he had withdrawn from the proceedings.

            “Well, Mrs. Oliver,” Max began.  “Or should I say Miss Hutchins, since that’s how the paper referred to you?”  He shrugged at her silence.  “I need to know where Dana is.”

            “Can’t help you.  I don’t know.”  It had the virtue of being honest, anyway.

            Max shook his head.  “Now, my dear young woman, you don’t expect me to believe that?  He was evidently quite fond of you.  You think I’ll accept that he picked up and left without telling you where he was going?”

            “I don’t much care what you believe.”  She used her flippant tone as she might a scalpel.

            “Xavier,” ordered Max.  “Instruct her in manners.”  Eager to obey, he gave Dae a bruising blow to the face.

            “I am willing to accept that he’s gone, Miss Hutchins, because Alec and Xavier have been watching your home since Monday and haven’t seen him.  Today I got impatient so they searched it.  Quite thoroughly.  I’m afraid they may have been…overzealous in their work, but that’s the price one pays on occasion.  But I think you know where he is, and you will tell me.”

            “Or what?” she snapped.  “You’ll kill me?  I figured as much.  Leaving me around to press charges for assault doesn’t seem likely, given how much your reputation means to you.”

            “Really, my dear,” Max chided her.  “You think death is the worst alternative I have at my disposal?  Just look at Xavier, he’s dying to demonstrate some of the others.”  The other man’s eyes glittered.  “You see my point, I’m sure.  Make this easy.  Tell me where Dana went.”

            Dae slumped.  “I honestly don’t know.  The day our pictures came out in the paper, some of his friends looked him up.  He left with them, and no, he didn’t tell me where he was going.”  Damn it, it was the truth!  Why would Max refuse to believe it?

            _Because he’s obsessed,_ the thought came back.  _Because he wants Data so desperately, he could hook me up to a lie detector, watch me tell the absolute truth, and still not believe me._

            So she told the truth, mostly, explaining that Data was a visitor from another planet whose compatriots took him home.  Max nodded at Xavier, who relished her flinch.  He grabbed her throat, and as she struggled in the chair, sliced the knife down her arm.  She twisted her head enough to bite his wrist.  “You little…” he growled, and added a deep slash down her other arm.

            “Now, Miss Hutchins, tell me the truth, or shall I let Xavier do what he wants?”  It went on for an hour, Max’s cool, calm voice asking time after time where Data was, Dae denying any knowledge of his location, Xavier growing progressively more creative with his tortures.

            “That’s enough,” Max said at last.  “Miss Hutchins, either you truly believe that misbegotten pack of lies, or your resistance outweighs my patience.  I’m sorry it had to come to this, but I will find him.  People don’t just vanish off the face of the earth.  Alec, is it ready?”

            Alec nodded.  “Good.  Miss Hutchins, we’re going to leave you now.  You look like you might be susceptible to cold in your current state of dress, so Alec will leave a fire burning to keep you warm.  Say good-bye, Xavier, but don’t be all night about it.”  Xavier kissed her in a ghastly perversion of romance, his bloody hands moving over her with such vile anticipation Dae nearly threw up.

            “Your loss, beautiful,” he whispered as he pulled away.  “You should have cooperated.”  She mustered enough nerve to spit in his face—if it was good enough for Set, she thought, it was more than good enough for a more minor monster—which got her one last crack across the face but lightened her heart a great deal.

            Right up to the second she smelled smoke.  “Good-bye, Miss Hutchins,” Max said in that cool voice, and left with Alec and Xavier at his heels.  They locked the door, though it seemed a useless precaution.  And then the only thoughts that filled her mind were how she might get out of her predicament before she died from the heat, the fumes, or the flames themselves.

 

* * *

 

            Data sat in his quarters, Spot on his lap.  If the coroner’s report was accurate, Dae would be engulfed in flames in a mere fifteen minutes.  She would die, if she still lived at all.  “And it is my fault,” he said in an echo of Q’s taunt.  “It is not right.  She should not have to pay the price for my interference in her life.”  He was at an impasse—per the captain’s order, he could not act, but neither could he let her die.  One or the other would have to be disregarded.

            To disobey a direct order could lead to his spending a great deal of time in the brig, if he was not simply drummed out of Starfleet.  He would lose not just his career, but the extraordinary opportunities for study that that career afforded him.  The alternative was to let Dae die.

            When he looked at it that way, there was no comparison.

            He collected his phaser and tricorder, accessed the most recent scans of Los Angeles, and found a spot in the nearby mountains with an elevated thermal output.  He accessed the Away Team’s tricorder readings.  The replicator produced a small box with the things he requested.

            Eleven minutes.  He hurried to the closest transporter room while he planned.  Getting himself beamed down would be no problem.  Getting back was another matter.  And he wished to check her home first, on the chance the report was wrong and she was there and safe.

            He strode into the transporter room, fully prepared to immobilize the officer on duty.  “Good evening, Commander,” said a chipper Irish brogue.

            “Chief O’Brien,” Data said in wonder.  “What are you doing here?  I was under the impression you were off duty.”

            “Oh, I am, sir.  Technically.”  O’Brien had a deliberately ingenuous expression on his ruddy face.  “But Johnson had a big date.”

            “I do not understand.”

            “He’s planning to propose tonight, you see, and if she says yes…well, now, you can’t have a man run out on his fiancée, can you, Commander?”

            “You are a good friend, Chief.”  His tone brought a smile to the Irishman’s face.

            “Thank you, sir.  I have the coordinates to your original location laid in.  Is that right?”

            “Yes, for the first transport,” Data agreed.  “However, I may need a second beam-out to this location.”  He entered the coordinates and mounted the transporter pad.  “I could aim my phaser at you, so you could say I threatened you.  You will be in a great deal of trouble.”

            O’Brien shook his head.  “That won’t be necessary, sir.  Besides, we both know you’d never pull a weapon on me and mean it.”

            Data had a fleeting memory of Kivas Fajo saying much the same thing just before Data fired.  “But in a matter of conscience, Chief,” the android said, “who can be sure of anything?”

            The transporter chief, perhaps recalling that odd comment of Data’s, when Riker mentioned Data’s disruptor being in a state of discharge, skipped a response.  “Energizing.”

 

            Worf noted the transport readings.  “Has the captain authorized surface activity, sir?”

            “Not to my knowledge, Worf,” the first officer answered.  “Riker to transporter room one.  Who just beamed down?”

            “I didn’t see anyone beam down, sir,” the brogue came over the comm link.  O’Brien had closed his eyes just as Data dematerialized.  “It might have been a random power surge related to the ongoing repairs.”

            “Check it out, Chief.  Keep me informed.”  Riker turned back to the viewscreen.

            “Aye, Commander.  O’Brien out.”  In the transporter room, he wiped a hand over his face and waited for Data’s signal.  If the second transport was needed, he would have to move fast or Worf might shut it down from Tactical.  He kept his eyes on his board—and his fingers crossed.

 

            Data materialized in the office.  It was pitch dark, which was not abnormal for nighttime.

            But it was also a mess.  Books lay torn on the floor, all the drawers emptied.  He halted when he smelled an unusual scent, something faintly ferrous that he had smelled before, on numerous unpleasant occasions.  He rushed to Dae’s bedroom.

            It was a shambles.  Clothing, bedclothes, drapes, all were torn, slashed, stained beyond recovery.  The smell of blood was very strong and he approached the bed with caution.

            Four of the five cats lay there, arranged in a row down the center of the bed.  Each had a single bullet hole in the center of its skull.  “Oh, no,” the android whispered.  The tricorder confirmed what he already knew.  They had all been dead for some time.  He gently stroked the blood-matted fur on Fog’s head, and Princess’s and Mongkut’s and Omar’s.  But where was Cin?

            Data forced himself to search the room and found the chest with Minnie’s jewelry, which the police report said was missing.  He had no time to ponder the incongruity.  Data hefted the chest under one arm while he searched the rest of the house, tricorder sweeping before him.

            The destruction was complete.  Slashed cushions gaped like open maws, the painting he had done for Dae was impaled on the fireplace tools, her china shattered beyond repair.  The residual bioelectric signatures matched those his internal sensors had gleaned from Alec and

Xavier.  He headed back toward the office and picked up a faint reading.  “Cinnamon?” called Data in a sharp whisper.  The cat emerged from the closet, bleeding from a crease between his ears, and leaped into Data’s free arm.  “I will not leave you, but you must hang on for yourself.”  The cat seemed to understand, for he perched on the android’s shoulder and dug in his claws.

            Data had five more minutes.  He put down the box and hit his comm badge.  “Chief O’Brien, transport the container in front of me to my quarters, then transport me and the feline life-form to the second coordinates, please.  Quickly.”  When the box disappeared, he pulled his phaser and waited.  He shimmered out of the devastation a moment later, Cin on his shoulder.

 

            The air filled with smoke and acrid fumes.  The heat was incredible and Dae felt about to burst into flames.  Which, come to think of it, she just might.  Frantic, she twisted her arms in the ropes, hoping to work up enough slack to pull free, but she succeeded only in getting rope burns.  A coughing fit left her eyes streaming.

            “Well, isn’t this a pretty picture!” a voice exclaimed.  She blinked and saw a shadowy form in the smoke.  “I don’t know what he saw in you, but then, I always did have trouble with the psychology of inferior life-forms.”  The figure resolved into a man, tall, good-looking in a conceited way, dark-haired and dark-eyed, wearing a Starfleet uniform.

            “Are you from the _Enterprise_?” she asked.  “I thought you’d gone.”

            “Oh, they’re having trouble with the engines.  The ship is parked behind the moon during repairs.”  He stooped until he was nose to nose with her.  “But I’m not actually part of the crew.”

            “Then who—?”  She turned away, coughing.

            “The name is Q.”  He said it as if it should mean something to her but she just stared.  “So Data never mentioned me, eh?  I’m truly hurt!  And after all I’ve done for him—”

            “Mr. Q,” she snapped, “could I ask you to get me out of this?”

             “Ye-e-e-s…yes,” he shrugged, “I suppose you could ask.”

            Dae wanted to scream in frustration.  “Then please, help me?”  She coughed again.

            “You should do something about that,” he suggested.  “It doesn’t sound good.  And your color…frankly, I’d suggest leaving.  The air here seems most insalubrious, don’t you agree?”

            “Are you _nuts_?  The building’s on fire!  But I can’t leave unless you untie me, so if you wouldn’t mind?”  She moved her arms a little to draw attention to the ropes.

            He smacked his forehead.  “How silly of me.  You want me to untie you!”

            “Yes!  Please!”

            He started a grand gesture, then stopped.  “There’s a price.”  Q wasn’t silly anymore, not by a long shot.  “Data knows you’re here.  He asked permission to save your life.  Picard refused.  So your gold friend is going to let you die.  I’m willing to save you.  All you have to do is repudiate him.”

            “What do you mean?”  The hair on her arms prickled in the heat.

            He looked heavenward.  “I learn this stupid means of communication and all you people can do is ask what I mean!”  Q brought his face close to hers.  “Data only pretended to be your friend,” came his insidious voice.  “You were useful to him, nothing more.  He knows you’re here because I told him, and he went to Picard in a burst of self-righteous logic and asked to save you.

            “Picard refused because their petty rules insist on non-interference in less-developed cultures, including their own past.  And Data is a nice, obedient little android that always does what he’s told.  You saved his life, but he won’t lift a single golden finger to return the favor.

            “Now, knowing that, no one would blame you for denying him.  And you’ll go free.  I’ll not only untie you, I’ll unlock the door.  They jammed the lock, you know, so even if you got loose you’d be stuck.  You’ll fry like an ant under a magnifying glass,” Q taunted, “without my help.  Just say, ‘Data means less to me than the bacilli inhabiting my digestive tract,’ or some equally invidious comparison.  So which is it?  Freedom?”  The flames flared and the door first flew wide, then slammed shut again with deadly finality.  His lips curved into a satanic grin.  “Or death?”

            “Data…” Dae began, then hacked and spat.  The fumes were making her dizzy

            “Well, snap it up,” he prodded, “I haven’t got all day.  And neither have you.”

            Smoke filled her lungs, scouring her throat raw as she panted.  “Data is my best friend,” she finally rasped out.  “Whatever his reasons, he’s doing what he thinks is right.”

            Q was unimpressed.  “This is doing you no good, you know.”

            “I don’t…care,” Dae gasped.  The very air was poison, and so was his evil suggestion, which roused one last denial.  “He’s my friend.  I almost lost him once, and I won’t deny him for you.  Now either…help me or…let me…die in peace.”

            “Your wish is my command.”  Q disappeared in a burst of white light.

            Dae took another labored breath.  Her head fell forward.  She went limp against the ropes.

            Her hair caught sparks and started to burn.  She coughed again, wheezed another breath.

            Then she stopped.

 

            “Commander, I am reading more transporter activity,” Worf advised.  “And again!”

            Riker traded looks with the Klingon.  “One power fluctuation, okay.  But three?”  He shook his head.  “Not with O’Brien on duty.  Computer, report recent transporter activity.”

            “Lieutenant Commander Data departed the _Enterprise_ via transporter six minutes, fourteen seconds ago.  One minute—”

            “On whose authorization?” Riker interrupted.

            “No authorization has been recorded.”

            “Bridge to O’Brien!” shouted the first officer.  “What the hell is going on?  Why didn’t you report that Commander Data transported down?”

            “As I said, Commander,” the wary Irishman replied, “I didn’t see anyone beam down.”

            “Worf, you have the bridge,” Riker ordered.  “I’m going to find out what’s happening down there if I have to pull that glib Irish tongue right out of his mouth.”

 

            Data solidified amid smoke and heat, the cat clawing his uniform.  He swept the area with his tricorder, holstered it and his phaser at the same time.  Dae was bound to a chair.  He held her hair at the base of her neck and used his other hand to break off the burning sections, threw down the contents of the box, then tore the ropes apart and pulled out his tricorder again.  Her vital signs were weak.  Cin jumped to her lap and howled.  Data tapped his communicator and swept them up.  “Data to O’Brien.  Medical emergency.  Three life-forms to beam directly to sickbay.”

            “Acknowledged,” replied the chief as the transporter room doors swished shut—with Riker on the inside.  O’Brien activated the controls under the first officer’s angry gaze.

            “Riker to Picard.”  Still wide awake, the captain replied.  “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but may I request that you join Chief O’Brien and me in your ready room?”

            “With all good speed, Number One.”  There was a brief pause.  “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with Data?”

            The first officer gaped at O’Brien, who just shrugged.  “How did you know, sir?”

            A deep sigh was heard.  “Let’s just say I had a feeling.  On my way.”

            Riker fixed O’Brien with a look that made the Irishman shudder.  “After you, Mr. O’Brien,” he gritted through clenched jaws.

 

            The coroner’s report was inaccurate.  It was one and a half minutes before his estimated time that Alec’s second incendiary device went off directly beneath the chair to which he had tied Dae.  The force of the explosion consumed the chair, as it was meant to have consumed her.

            Far away, in his private jet, Max checked his watch and smiled.

 


	30. Chapter 30

30

 

 

            At the call of a medical emergency, Crusher got an autopage from the computer and raced to sickbay.  She arrived as the nurses settled a stranger on one of the biobeds.  “My God, what happened to her?” she exclaimed, and sneezed at the reek of smoke.

            “I am not certain, Doctor,” the android replied.  “She was caught in a fire—”

            “Among other things,” Crusher broke in after checking the readouts.  “Leporazine, twenty-five cc’s.”  A nurse slapped the hypospray into her hand and she held it to the woman’s throat.  “Nothing.  Norep, fifteen cc’s.”  Cinnamon howled.  “And get that cat out of my way!”  The cat leapt again to Data’s shoulder.

            The med panel suddenly came to life, and Dae, still unconscious, gasped.  The readings steadied, then edged higher.  “Good,” breathed the doctor.  “Let’s get that filth out of her lungs.  Then we’ll repair the nose and jaw, start tissue regeneration and osteogenesis.  I’d like to know who I’m working on, Data,” she said over her shoulder.

            “Her name is Dae Hutchins,” replied Data.  Crusher looked surprised.  “Will she survive?”

            Before she could answer, the captain’s voice blasted over the comm link.  _“Lieutenant Commander Data, report to my ready room_ immediately _!”_

            Data paused.  “He sounds rather perturbed.”

            “He sounds rather more than that, Data, you’d better get going.”  She softened the directive with a smile.  “It’s a little too early to tell.  Another minute and it would certainly have been too late.  Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her.”

            “I have every confidence in your abilities, Doctor,” he declared as he turned away.

“Data?” the doctor called after him.  “Better leave the cat.”  He handed the squirming feline to one of the med techs and left sickbay.

            “‘Every confidence in me.’  Well, thank you for that.  And I have every confidence,” Crusher murmured, “that you’re in deep, deep trouble.  Alyssa, stand by with that metorapan.”

 

            O’Brien stood at attention beside Riker.  “Let’s have it, Chief,” Picard said, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  This had not turned out to be the most restful night of his life.

            “Yes, sir,” he said.  “You see, Johnson was planning to propose tonight and I—”

            “Not that part, mister!”  Riker’s voice pounded the walls.  “The part where you ‘didn’t see’ Commander Data beam down without authorization!”

            Picard’s head snapped up.  “He did _what?”_

            Riker explained the string of transporter oddities.  The captain looked back at the now-pale O’Brien.  “You are aware,” Picard enunciated with precision, “that I have prohibited all transport to Earth since we got Commander Data back?”

            “Aye, Captain,” replied the Irishman.  He paled another shade.

            “Then what reason did he give for beaming down, mister?”  Picard uttered the words with more than a trace of iron in his voice.

            O’Brien swallowed.  “None, sir.”

            “None at all?  He came in, said ‘beam me down,’ and you did, is that what you’re saying?”

            “Not exactly, sir.  He made sure I had the right coordinates, and input a set of his own.”

            “You already had the coordinates?” asked Riker.  This was getting confusing.

            “Aye, sir.”  O’Brien began to relax.  “You see, Keiko and I spent a bit of time with Commander Data in Ten-Forward a while ago.  I just had a feeling, based on the conversation, that he’d be wanting to beam down, so I told Johnson I’d take his shift.”  The senior officers looked at each other, stunned.  “It seemed like the best way, sir.”

            “Chief O’Brien, what were those coordinates?” Picard demanded.  The iron was steel now, piercing O’Brien like a moth on a mounting board as he repeated the coordinates.

            “Captain, that’s where we picked him up!” the first officer said.

            “I’m not surprised,” replied the captain.  Ice frosted the steel.  “And the second set?”  He asked the computer if the location matched an area found in its files.  Ancient surveyors’ records downloaded from Earth labeled the site as the Primus Studios Ranch.

            Picard cursed, then asked for Data’s location.  The computer voice said sickbay.  The captain ordered Data to report.  Forcefully.  Riker and O’Brien both winced.  “Mr. O’Brien, I’m very displeased with you,” Picard said.  It was an understatement of galactic proportions.  “I hope your wife gets as much satisfaction from the reprimand I’m going to place in your file, as you did from beaming my second officer off this ship without authorization.”

            “Begging your pardon, Captain,” O’Brien said after clearing his throat again, “but Keiko already knows, or at least is prepared for the worst.  When I mentioned helping Data, just as an idea you understand, she told me I’d spend the rest of our marriage on the couch if I didn’t.”  He shrugged.  “With all due respect, sir, I really had no choice.”  The first officer smothered a grin.

            Miles Edward O’Brien, the captain thought acidly, had spent far too much time kissing the Blarney Stone.  “You’re dismissed, Chief.”  O’Brien made a smart about-face and left the room.

            Once on the other side of the door, he allowed himself a shiver.  He headed to the aft turbolift and met Data leaving it.  “I must thank you for your assistance, Chief,” he said.

            “My pleasure, sir.  How is she?”

            “Dr. Crusher seems hopeful of a full recovery, though it is not yet a certainty.”

            “I’m glad to hear it, Commander.”  O’Brien stepped into the lift.  “Oh, and sir?”  Data turned back.  “Heavy weather in there,” the chief nodded toward the ready room door.  “Watch yourself.”  Data nodded once and went to meet his fate.

            The captain’s first words were unexpected.  “What the hell happened to you?”  The android looked down at his bloody uniform and hands, and realized his face was bloody, too.

            “It is Dae’s sir.  And Cinnamon’s.”  Riker said the latter was one of Miss Hutchins’ cats.

            Picard’s head drooped forward.  “Sit down, Data.  I’m getting a crick in my neck.  You, too, Number One.”  The captain folded his hands and began to speak.

            “Commander Data, your performance has been, with few exceptions, exemplary.  This ship and its crew have owed their survival to you on more than one occasion.  You are, without doubt, one of the finest officers with whom it has ever been my pleasure to serve.”  He paused.

            “Thank you, Captain—”  Picard’s next words shoved the response back in Data’s teeth.

            “But when you decide to break out of your customary habits, mister, you pick the worst possible way!”  The captain rarely shouted.  Today was obviously the day he planned to make up for lost time.  “You disobeyed a direct order, Mr. Data!  You defied—no, you _flouted_ the Prime Directive as it pertains to time travel!  You deliberately allowed a fellow officer to put his own career at risk while you broke regulations right and left for your own benefit!  You—!”

            “Not for my benefit, Captain,” Data’s quiet voice interrupted.  Picard spluttered to a stop.  “For Dae’s.  I could not allow her die because of my inadvertent intrusion into her life.”

            Finally aware of the cause of the captain’s anger, Riker’s jaw dropped.

            No one spoke, so Data risked continuing.  “Captain, I had no choice.  Mr. Sinclair’s guards searched her home, and destroyed most of her possessions.  They killed four of her cats and left them in her bed, I assume to serve as some kind of warning had they not captured her.”  Even the captain could not restrain a grimace of distaste, but he kept to the purpose.

            “What about the physical evidence of her death?” asked Picard

            “The Away Team’s scans had Dae’s genetic structure.  I replicated dental and skeletal fragments, as well as her jewelry, to leave at the scene.  The report also said certain items were missing from her home.  When I searched there, I found them.  Since Mr. Sinclair’s men did not steal them, I assumed some other agency removed them prior to the police’s involvement.  Therefore, I took them, so I could return them to Dae.  They are all she has left now.”

            The android catalogued her injuries and Crusher’s prognosis.  “I am sorry to have disappointed you, sir,” he ended.  “I freely submit myself to whatever disciplinary measures you feel necessary.  But I could not let Dae die.  Given the circumstances, sir, could you?”

            “And what do you plan to do now, Mr. Data?” Picard asked, ignoring the question.

            Data shook his head.  “I do not know.  It depends on you, and on Dae, if she recovers.”

            “Oh, she’ll recover, Data, have no doubt,” Picard assured him.  “There’s nothing our CMO likes more than a medical challenge, and your friend is right up her alley.  But matters are extremely complicated.”  He leaned back in his chair and fixed his errant officer with a stern look.  “You are relieved of duty, Commander, pending inquiry into your actions and the advisability of convening a court-martial.  Dismissed.”  The android left with admirable dispatch.

            Riker followed him out with his eyes.  “Are you really planning to court-martial him, sir?”

            Rubbing the bridge of his nose again, Picard grumbled, “I don’t know.  He disobeyed direct orders, after all.  As things stand, I may have no other option.  The problem is,” and his eyes were a stormy color, haunted, “were our positions reversed, I might have done exactly as he.

            “Will, call a staff meeting, 0800.”

 

            Crusher reported first.  Miss Hutchins was under a bioregenerative field, still sedated, due to her massive internal blunt-force trauma and the lung damage from toxic fumes.  Her right orbit, nose and jaw were healing well, though, as were the shallower incisions on her neck and chest; muscle tissue on the arms, severed almost to the bone, would take longer.  The fractured metacarpal, phalangeal and patellar bones were responding to the metorapan, and the patient would have to wear osteogenesis units for a few days, she said, sounding a little sick—the injuries were obviously intentional.

            In addition, she had repaired the patient’s cavities and inoculated her against further dental caries, corrected the minor visual-acuity defects, provided broad-spectrum immunization, and had Mr. Mot come to sickbay to clean up what Data had done to her hair in his haste to save her.

            “Thank you, Doctor,” Picard said.  “Your expertise is appreciated.”  The bitter note in his voice made her wonder if he meant it.  “You’ve all noticed that Commander Data is absent,” he went on, and succinctly explained what the rumor mill had already spread.

            While he fleshed out the story, Troi sat in her usual place and soaked in the staff’s reactions.  The captain was furious, of course, though more at the position in which Data’s actions placed him than at the android himself.  Her _Imzadi_ and best friend was proud of Data; Riker possessed an almost archaic gallantry that asserted itself at odd moments.  But he was worried that this time, the android might have passed the point of no return.

            Crusher was Data’s strongest supporter, Prime Directive or no.  She was both an unabashed romantic and dedicated to preserving life, so Data’s actions were right however she looked at them.  La Forge filled with thankfulness at the mere mention of Miss Hutchins.  Worf was a surprise—shocked though he was by Data’s breaking regulations, he ultimately approved; allowing someone who had aided you to die at the hands of cravens would be the height of dishonor.

            For herself, Troi knew she had to side with Data.  The ultimate responsibility for the situation lay with Q.  Data had merely tried to correct a grievous result of the entity’s meddling.

            Picard’s poll of his officers brought the replies Troi expected, and he tabled further discussion on the android’s status until after the engineer’s report.  La Forge estimated they could have warp power restored in five more days, allowing for tests outside the solar system.

            “Sickbay to Dr. Crusher.”

            She looked to Picard, who nodded.  Nurse Ogawa said Miss Hutchins was beginning to wake, and should they continue the sedation and biofield?  “No,” Crusher decided.  “Not if her body is trying to throw off the sedative.  How’s the cat?”  A decidedly imperious meow announced that Cinnamon was quite well.  “I’ll be down soon, Alyssa,” she added.  “Deanna, I’d like you there when she wakes.  And Captain?  May I inform Data?”

            “If you’re satisfied of her recovery, Doctor, I suppose you should.  He did, after all, risk a great deal to bring her here.  But I’ll want to talk to her as well.  Soon.”

 

            Everything felt fuzzy.  Her eyes, the inside of her head, her whole body felt like she was made of a million cotton balls.  Getting her eyes open was impossible.

            She took a deep breath and felt the cotton balls press back on her chest.  “This isn’t any help,” she said, but because cotton filled her mouth it came out as a silent mumble.

            Her ears worked—sort of.  “Relea—oregen—ldslo—hyp—”  Whatever that meant.

            Then the cotton balls were melting, trickling out of her ears and eyes, sliding down her throat.  She wanted to cough them up but they were gone.  “All right, bring the lights up,” a woman’s gentle voice said.  Dae liked its brisk compassion.  Her eyelids fluttered.

            “She’s almost awake,” said another voice, also female, accented, exotic and rich.

            She opened her eyes.  Two concerned faces stared down at her.  She looked from one to the other, tried to find them in her memory, and did.

            Data had drawn them.  A lovely redhead with impish blue eyes and skin like porcelain.  The other, with masses of curls like bittersweet chocolate, was stunning, with a smile of such kindness that Dae was quite at ease.  She looked back to the blue eyes.  “Dr. Crusher?” she whispered.  She remembered rasping pain, now gone, in the region of her throat.

            The redhead grinned.  “Yes, I’m Beverly Crusher.”  She nodded to the brunette.  “This is Deanna Troi, ship’s counselor.”

            Dae swallowed, made sure there was really no pain, and said in a stronger voice, “Counselor.  I’m pleased to meet you.  What’s going on?  I thought the _Enterprise_ was gone.”

            _“They’re having trouble with the engines.  The ship is parked behind the moon…”_   Now where had that memory come from?

            Troi sensed her confusion.  “Are you all right, Miss Hutchins?” asked the empath.

            Dae frowned a little.  “I think so.  It’s just, I remember asking someone…no, someone telling me, that the _Enterprise_ was still here.  What the hell am I wearing?”

            “A treatment gown,” Crusher said, “and maybe Data told you we were still here.”

            Shaking her head, Dae said, “I haven’t seen Data since he left Monday night.  No, this man was wearing the maroon uniform, like Commander Riker.  Damn, what was his name?”

            Troi recommended she relax.  “I can’t.  I have to remember…he said some rotten things about Data, I know that, and he was mad Data never mentioned him, but he’s got such a huffy attitude I don’t know why he expects anybody _wants_ to mention him.”  Dae paused, thinking hard.  “Makes me queasy….  Que….  Do you know somebody named Q?” she blurted out.

            “Yes,” said Crusher in astonishment, “but how do you know him?”

            “He dropped into a burning building for a chat.”  Dae managed a chuckle and told them about it.  “When I wouldn’t say anything lousy about Data, he got mad and left.”  Then the import of her surroundings sunk in and Troi felt her apprehension.  “Data came and got me,” Dae whispered.  “Against the captain’s orders.  Damn it, why do I always have to get him in trouble?”  Tears trickled into her ears.  “I hate crying when I’m flat on my back.  May I sit up, please?”

            Crusher and Troi eased Dae up.  She hardly noticed the devices on her forearms and hands as she covered her face and sobbed.  “Miss Hutchins, here’s a friend of yours,” the empath said mischievously, and a nurse put Cinnamon on the bed.  He mewed and crawled into her lap.

            The doctor took something from her lab coat pocket, two rings on a narrow chain.  “We found these in your pants pocket.  Would you like them back now?”  Dae nodded and leaned forward as Crusher put the chain over her head.  Cinnamon batted at the rings and Dae slipped them into the neck of the gown, then cradled the cat in her arms.

            “What are you doing here, baby?” she murmured against his fur.  “Come to think of it,” she said, wonder in her voice, “what _am_ I doing here?”  She looked at the officers.  “Maybe somebody should tell me what’s going on.”

            Taking a deep breath, Troi reconstructed the week since Data returned to the ship.  “And now,” she warned in that gentle voice, “you must prepare yourself.  You may find this upsetting.”  She explained everything that had happened the day before.

            “Xavier,” Dae spat when Troi told her about her other cats.  “He’d do it for fun.  Go on.”

            “There’s not much else to tell,” Troi replied after a sidelong glance at Crusher.  “Data found Cinnamon, beamed to the site of the fire, and brought both of you back here.”

            Dae shook her head.  “You’re leaving something out, Counselor.  I can tell from the look on your face.  Just how much trouble is he in?”

            Crusher replied, “The captain has relieved Data of duty pending an inquiry.  He may have no choice but to convene a court-martial.”

            “With a friend like me,” Dae muttered, “Data sure doesn’t need enemies, does he?  I seem to bring him nothing but bad luck.”

            “How likely is it,” Troi pointed out, “that Data would go to all this effort for someone he considered ‘bad luck,’ Miss Hutchins?”

            “If Data thought it was his fault something went wrong with history,” replied Dae, “he’d save Khan Singh and damn the consequences to fix things.  Our friendship would be incidental.”

            “I don’t think Data considers your friendship incidental,” Crusher chided her.

            That brought a genuine smile to Dae’s face, and an upwelling of emotion that encouraged a similar expression from Troi.  “No, I don’t guess he does.  I know I don’t.”  She scratched Cinnamon behind the ears.  “May I see him, or has the captain put him in the brig?”

            Crusher tapped her communicator.  “Sickbay to Data.  Your presence is requested.”

 

            While not confined to quarters, Data chose to stay there and evaluate his program results.  He wished to be in sickbay, but he was useless there.  Eighty-four minutes after his report to Picard, Crusher told him that Dae was responding to treatment.  She had told him nothing since.

            He saw the computer notice for the unscheduled staff meeting and assumed he was the reason for it.  He wondered how his friends would take the news.

            The time for the meeting came and went.

            It was nine hours, fifty-three minutes, twenty-eight seconds since the last communication from Crusher.  He decided to contact her and check on Dae.  As he touched his comm badge, the doctor summoned him.  He was out the door before the channel closed.

            He found Dae sitting up talking to the doctor and counselor, Cin a purring bundle on her lap.  She looked at the open door and gave him a tearful smile.  His own expression lightened to a slightly pleased mode.  Crusher gestured Troi toward her office.  “How is she, Doctor?” he asked.

            “Not quite as good as new, Data, but better.  And eager to talk to you,” Crusher said.  “If she suddenly gets tired, take that as your cue to leave, she’s still weak.”  He agreed and went to the biobed, where Dae nudged to one side to give him room to sit.  This arrangement had the added advantage, in Dae’s opinion, of letting them hold hands unseen.

 

            “Well, Deanna, what do you think?” the doctor asked as she ordered hot chocolate and a croissant for each of them.

            “I’d say Miss Hutchins is in surprisingly good health, considering all she’s been through.”  She sighed.  “But I don’t envy our captain.  The situation is more complex than he knows.”

            “Of course, you saw it, too,” Crusher said with a sympathetic light in her blue eyes.  “As you said, I don’t envy him.  Now,” she changed the subject, “are you ready to pay off our bet?”

            Troi took a steadying sip of chocolate at the prospect.

 

            Data spent an hour with Dae, talking and listening.  She held his hand despite the discomfort of the regen equipment, and Data was willing for the contact to continue.  When she leaned against the bulkhead and closed her eyes, he sat still with her hand in his for a few more minutes.  “Dae?  Do you wish to sleep?” he asked, and held the cat while she slid down in the bed.  Before he left, she looked around, then pulled him down to give him a kiss.

            “Thank you, Data,” she whispered, and closed her eyes again.

            He went to Crusher and reported Dae slept, Cinnamon curled up beside her.  The doctor assured him she would keep him advised.  “Crusher to Picard,” she said when the android was gone.  “Data just left and my patient is sleeping again.  I’ll notify you when she wakes up.”

 

            Dae did, two hours later, and felt much better.  Medical care was little short of miraculous in this era.  A doctor of her own time would have left her covered in stitches and casts and bandages, assuming she survived in the first place.  Odd that even though she knew she was still in 1995, the ship was more real to her than Earth, and felt more like home.

            Down there, the arson squad would be deep in its investigation, and she wondered if Kee would be involved.  They would have found her car, and the fake bone fragments and jewelry Troi mentioned.  The police would search her home, find the vandalism, her murdered cats.  That wound was deepest of all, and she hugged Cin until he squeaked.

            And now she sat in a hospital bed on a UFO several thousand miles from her home planet, with no clothes, no home, and no idea of what was coming next.

            Other than the minor matter of a chat with Captain Picard.  “Is he coming here, Doctor, or am I going to him?”  Either way, she was scared stiff and it showed.

            “I think it’s a bit soon for you to be roaming around, Miss Hutchins,” Crusher grinned.  “Relax, he doesn’t bite!”

            “No, but I’ll bet he barks awfully well,” Dae said under her breath, and the doctor laughed outright.  She helped Dae into a robe whose wide sleeves hid the fading scars and the bulky osteogenesis units.  Crusher picked up Cinnamon and headed into the next room.

            Picard came in as the doctor passed.  “She’s ready for you, Jean-Luc, and there’s a chair by the bed.”  Then she pinned him with those blue eyes.  “I said you don’t bite.  Don’t make a liar of me.”  The doctor retreated before he could reply.  He shook his head and went into the ward.

            Things were quiet in sickbay today, he noted.  The chestnut-haired woman with the wary hazel eyes was the only occupant.  “Miss Hutchins, I’m Jean-Luc Picard.”  He extended his hand and she shook it as firmly as her healing bones allowed.  “Welcome to the _Enterprise_.”

            She thanked him, looking flustered.  “I must admit, sir,” Dae said, “welcome is not exactly what I’d expected under the circumstances.  What’s going to happen to Data?”

            He smiled slightly.  “To be honest, I haven’t decided yet.  Q’s interference was the catalyst for this whole series of events, so I’m reluctant to move too quickly.  Data is one of my most valued officers, and a friend.”  When she relaxed a bit, Picard questioned her in roundabout ways.

            The results dismayed him.  She knew all there was to know about Data, from the simple fact of his being an android to some of his construction details.  Not only that, she knew a great deal about Data’s friends and many of their missions.  She grasped the basics of the technology that powered the ship, and had drawn several all-too-accurate conclusions about Earth’s future.     He found her intelligent and amusing, kindhearted, compassionate, pragmatic, strong-willed but not willful.  He heard the story of Data’s life in her era from her side and began to understand why the android was comfortable confiding in her.  Sad but calm, she also told him what happened to her the night Data rescued her.  Hearing that she sustained her injuries while yet again protecting his second officer raised Picard’s opinion of her another notch.

            Under other circumstances, he would have found conversation with such an interesting and attractive young woman quite delightful.  “Miss Hutchins,” he said when her eyelids started to droop, “I’ll leave you in Dr. Crusher’s capable hands, but I’d like to visit you again, if I may.”

            Knowing he would if it suited him, she accepted the gallantry in its intended spirit.  “Thank you, sir.  But may I say something?”

            He turned back, a question on his face.  Dae bit her lip.  “I have no right to tell you how to handle discipline, sir, but as an interested party…please don’t punish Data just for being human.”

            “I’ll see what options I have, Miss Hutchins,” he replied with a trace of annoyance.

            After the doors closed behind him, Dae breathed a shaky sigh and curled up for a nap.

 

            Data visited her the next morning.  Crusher said she was pleased by Dae’s progress but had no immediate plans to release her.  With a smile, she left them alone.

            He got Dae a cup of tea and sat beside her on the bed.  They talked a while, then the conversation fizzled.  “So has the captain decided anything yet?” she asked.

            He shook his head.  “I have not yet been restored to duty.  He has not convened a board of inquiry, though the requisite number of ranking officers is available from the ship’s complement.  I believe the captain is scrutinizing my report and the results of your debriefing—”

            “Debriefing?  Is that what that was?” she chuckled.  “I just assumed he wanted to know what kind of trouble you’d dragged onto his ship.”

            Data cocked his head, mystified.  “I did not drag you, Dae.  I carried you.  And I find the reference to yourself as trouble both inaccurate and needlessly self-deprecating.”

            “You carried me?”

            He nodded.  “You could not stand on your own, having been rendered unconscious.”

            “How did you carry me?”  Her voice, low and vibrant, sounded sweeter than usual to Data’s ears, perhaps because he had come so close to losing that voice.

            “This is an inappropriate location for a demonstration,” he said.  “Would you be amenable to granting me a ‘rain check’?”

            She laughed and agreed.  “But I intend to hold you to that, you know.”  Dae stretched, then went tense as pain stabbed through her arms.  “I think I need a little exercise, I feel like one giant muscle cramp.  Or should I stay here?  Am I under house arrest, do you think?”

            He shook his head.  “I do not know.  It would not be standard procedure, but this is not a standard situation.  And I cannot find out.”  His voice was troubled.  “Having been relieved of duty prevents my accessing command-level records.  However,” he said, looking brighter, “Dr. Crusher may have been informed.”  He tapped his comm badge and asked her.

            Crusher entered the ward, grinning.  “The captain says Miss Hutchins has the same freedom of movement as any other guest, despite the irregularities surrounding her presence.  That’s a direct quote, by the way,” the doctor laughed.  “Show her around, Data, and have fun!”

            “That’s a relief,” sighed Dae.  “Now all I need is clothes.  Somehow,” she said with a wry look at herself, “I don’t think wandering around barefoot in this outfit is the done thing, do you?”

            Anticipating the request, Crusher signaled Ogawa to bring in a caftan and a pair of soft shoes.  They activated a privacy screen and helped Dae change.  “The osteogenesis units have to stay on a while longer,” said the doctor, “and I don’t want to put more pressure on the new skin than needed.  Also, your new knees might take a little getting used to.  You can wander a while, Miss Hutchins, but I strongly recommend limited activity.  You’ll heal faster if you go slower.  See that she takes care, Data?” she called to the android.

            “I understand, Doctor.  Thank you.”  He offered Dae his arm when she joined him.

 

            He showed her the unusual habitats in the aquatics lab, demonstrated the holodeck, and escorted her everywhere but the bridge, which his status made off-limits.

            They ended up in Ten-Forward and sat down by a viewport.  Guinan came over to offer drinks, explaining to Dae that synthehol-based beverages left no unpleasant aftereffects.  Dae had no idea what to ask for.  Data suggested a Samarian Sunset.

            The bartender disappeared for a moment and returned with two glasses of clear liquid.  “Data, why don’t you do the honors?” Guinan suggested.

            Data shrugged and gave the rim of each glass a flick with one finger.  The ringing tone was the final ingredient—its vibration caused a chemical reaction that resulted in the colorless beverage turning a brilliant orange-gold with swirling pink highlights.  Dae applauded in delight.

            “Thank you, Data,” Guinan smiled.  “Can I get you two anything else?”

            Dae admitted being hungry and asked what might go best with her drink.  “Many things,” Data said.  “Shall I make some suitable selections?”  She nodded and leaned back in her seat with a distinctly flirtatious expression, Guinan thought, lashes lowered and half a smile curving her lips.  Nor did Data seem unaware, since he flashed a debonair smile quite unlike his usual one.

            He reviewed her wide-ranging tastes and decided on X!Merlonian seafood pastries, parthas à la Yuta, and chilled Andorian flatnoodles.  “For two,” he added before Guinan turned away, and the bartender’s ebon eyes inspected the table’s biological occupant with more care.  Her hat brim hid another smile as she bowed and went to get the order.

            Their meal was half-over when La Forge joined them.  He came in to meet D’Sora, who seemed to be running late.  The buzz of conversation led the engineer to their table.

            “Hi, Data.  Miss Hutchins,” he said.  “Mind if I sit down?”  Dae grinned, so the android invited La Forge to join them.  “Is he giving you the grand tour, Miss Hutchins?”

            “That’s an understatement, Commander!  This ship is unimaginably beautiful.  I feel privileged to be here—in more ways than one.”  Her look at Data overflowed with gratitude and affection.  Perhaps more, but La Forge couldn’t know, and Data might not understand.  Then the android clasped Dae’s fingers for a moment, and La Forge thought Data understood after all.

            “But I’m curious,” she went on.  The pause lengthened.  Guinan drifted over and heard the next words, words Dae spoke with more than curiosity.  They also held fear.  “Q said I was going to die, and considering what the doctor told me about my injuries, I’d be a fool not to know how close he was to being right.  But I didn’t die, because you saved me, Data.  What I want to know is, how did you know where to find me?”


	31. Chapter 31

31

 

 

            Data, after considerable internal debate, told her.  Dae went pale.  “My obituary,” she said.  “I really was going to die.”  The truth shocked her, made her escape not narrow but miraculous.

            “Actually, Dae,” said Data, “it would be more accurate to say that, in _this_ time line, you were going to die.  We have no way of knowing what was to have happened before Q set the current stream of events in motion.  The ship’s own database contains no mention of your death.”

            “Then since all you did was try to fix something Q caused,” Dae proposed, “why can’t you just take me home and be done with it?  It might surprise a few people, but I’ll be alive, which you say he told you was how it was supposed to be—”  She shook her head.  “God, this is confusing.”

            “I don’t doubt it.”  Guinan took the last empty seat.  “Sorry to intrude, but I heard what you said, and it isn’t as simple as that.”  The bartender saw their puzzlement.  “When Q sent him back in time, he affected not just Data, but everyone Data came in contact with.”  She sought a good comparison.  “Data’s like a rock Q dropped into a pond.  The ripples are still spreading.”

            Dae’s death was one particular ripple at the outer edge of the pond, but it would never have existed if not for the ripples behind it.  What was in the past now _was_ the past, all other might-have-beens wiped away by Q’s interference.  Unless Q decided to undo everything he had done, nothing could change.  “Somehow,” the bartender said, “I don’t think that’s likely.”

            “Then what’s going to happen to me?” whispered Dae.

            “If Guinan is correct in her reasoning,” Data said, “and I can find no fault in her theory, I do not see how you can go back home, Dae.”  His quiet voice somehow made the news worse.

            She swallowed once, felt the synthehol’s glow fade, and pushed away her plate.  “Good as it tastes, I think I’ve lost my appetite.  Could I go back to sickbay now, please?”

            “Of course, Dae.”  Full of solicitude, Data offered his arm as they left the bar.

            La Forge and Guinan looked after them.  “I’d like to get my hands on Q long enough to teach him a lesson,” she muttered.  “I wish the Continuum hadn’t interfered and given him back his powers.  We might not have had this problem.”

            “Yeah, but Guinan,” La Forge reminded her, “he was in a shuttlecraft being attacked by the Calamarain.  He wouldn’t have survived.”

            “I know,” she said flatly as she cleared the table.  “What did you think I meant?  That we might have reformed him?  You don’t believe that, do you?”

            “No,” he admitted.  “No, I guess I don’t.”  D’Sora came in and started toward him, but he met her halfway and led her out.  All of a sudden, Ten-Forward was not a relaxing place to be.

 

            Dae gave Data a secretive kiss and sent him away, saying she had to think and he was far too distracting.  He smiled at the compliment and kissed her again before he left.

            It never occurred to her that she might not go home.  Dae had assumed they would send her back when Crusher pronounced her fit.  She had given no thought to the bone fragments and jewelry.  Important details, she now saw, things that told everyone she had been dead two days.

            The bones…well, if she walked up to the coroner, he would have to conclude he was mistaken.  But how to explain the diamonds when she still had the ring?  Dae started to fidget in bed, where Crusher had threatened to restrain her.  Maybe it would be easier to stay “dead.”

            So where did that leave her?  Homeless, unemployed, with no way to make a new start.

            Cinnamon trotted in from his kennel in the side room and jumped into her arms.  He proceeded to lick her face, groom himself, and curl up for a nap, content.  “I’m glad one of us is getting used to things,” she snapped at the purring cat.

 

            Crusher declared her almost recovered the next day, but recommended a chat with Troi.  Since there was more than a little on her mind, Dae took the advice, and a quiet couple of hours with the empath helped a lot.  They did not, however, give Dae a solution to her dilemma.

 

            Picard wrestled with the same dilemma.  Both Data and La Forge had reported Guinan’s comments.  Picard talked with her, understood and agreed with her logic.  If he could just find some logic of his own!  Perhaps, if he treated it as a simple violation of the Prime Directive….

            He had on board an alien from a culture that was not just pre-warp but in relative childhood regarding space travel.

            The alien’s presence stemmed from a violation of orders by Da—by the ship’s second officer.  But a third party had interfered—damn Q’s omnipotent hide!—and admitted the second officer’s presence resulted in the situation that then prompted his disobedience.  The third party caused the events; the second officer tried to right the most egregious resulting wrong.

            Yes, Data disobeyed orders, but only to fix something that should never have happened.

            Still, it left Picard with one castaway from twentieth-century Earth—and her cat—and no closer to a resolution.  He got himself a fresh cup of tea.

            According to all available evidence, Dae Hutchins had died in a fire three days ago.  In fact, she lived.  If he sent her back, what might happen?

            Picard visualized her interrogation.  How did she escape the burning structure, when the door was jammed from the outside?  Where did she hide while she was thought dead?  Since she was certainly not dead, then whose were the bone fragments?

            He frowned.  Persistent, repeated questioning could cause even the wariest subject to let slip an inexplicable detail.  Should that occur, she might be kept in custody, perhaps be confined to a mental institution.  History lessons had taught him how inadequate, even barbaric, were the treatments for the insane in this time, and he tried without success to repress a shudder.

            Hoping for the best, then, that she could believably answer all questions put to her… Maxwell Sinclair _was_ behind the attack.  If she went back, would he let well enough alone?

            Or try again to kill her?  And perhaps succeed?

            The captain’s sense of justice rebelled.  Sending her back to the possibility of death went very much against the grain.  He knew that if Miss Hutchins suggested going home, he would try to dissuade her.  Another possibility occurred to him.  Now that she was “dead,” what if her presence could still change history?  If she did something unforeseeable, or had a child who did?  “No,” muttered the frustrated captain.  “No, there are too damned many unknowns.”

            The line of thought led him to one inescapable conclusion.

            No violation of the Prime Directive _ever_ turned out to be simple.  Not even his own.

            “Picard to Riker.  Please report to my ready room.”  It was time to find out if his mental gymnastics had really solved anything.

 

            Data picked Dae up from sickbay after her talk with the counselor.  Together with Cinnamon, who leapt to the android’s shoulder and refused to get down, they went to his quarters.  Spot hissed at the other cat at first, but they were soon chasing a mechanized mouse around the cabin.  Data settled Dae on the sofa with a cup of tea and asked how she was.

            “Still confused,” she answered.  “And nervous.  At loose ends.”

            Data scrutinized her clothing in puzzlement.  She wore dark green slacks and a paler green blouse beneath a loose jacket hiding the osteogenesis units, and he said, “I see no loose ends.”

            She giggled.  “Emotionally, sugar,” she corrected.  “Antsy.  I need to do something but I don’t know what.”  Dae sighed, toyed with the cup and saucer, fidgeted, tossed a toy to the cats.

            “Perhaps you require some type of manual activity.  Eighty-seven percent of your actions since we arrived here have involved your hands.”  He led her to his workroom and set up an easel and chair next to his own, and went to work on an unfinished seascape.

            She picked up a charcoal pencil and slashed it across the blank canvas.  A few more quick strokes and she had the beginnings of a scene, filled it in, then picked up a brush and palette.

            They worked in comfortable silence until Dae gasped, so Data looked at her canvas.  There were her five cats, sprawled before a crackling fire.  All except Cinnamon were a ghostly gray.  “I miss them,” she moaned.  “And Kat, and Doc, Len…oh, God.”  Data took the palette and brush from her trembling hands.  “How did you live without everyone you cared for, Data?”

            “It is very simple, Dae,” he replied.  “I found you.”

            Lips quivering as she fought back sobs, she reached for him and fell into his arms.  She wept a long time, then kissed his cheek.  The experience, Data noted, was more damp than usual but not unpleasant.  “Thank you, Data,” she said.  “Thank you for finding me.”  He had the idea her simple words carried a wealth of meaning.

            She buried her face in his neck and whispered, “I think I’d like you to show me how you carried me.  You did say you would, you know.”

            “I remember, Dae,” he replied.  “This would appear to be a more suitable interval.”

            He discovered, when she put her arms around his neck, that she was less interested in the demonstration than the resultant proximity of their faces.  Her kiss was far more shy than usual.  Data asked why.  She said she was not quite sure he still wished to participate in the activity.

            For having known him such a short time, as compared with his friends on the ship, she knew how to phrase things so he knew precisely what she meant.  He then answered her inquiry by responding in the manner to which she was accustomed.

            Dae felt safe.  After all the upheavals she had survived, all she wanted was what she had right now, a place far from danger made safer by Data’s more than comforting presence.  To be held with such steady strength, kissed with so much inadvertent tenderness…

            She sensed his hesitant wish to comprehend.  After his past experiences, he could have given up, become the automaton so many expected.  Instead, he still tried, testing himself against the yardstick of humanity.  Falling short in his estimation, perhaps, but never in hers.

            An hour passed, another quarter, and still he held her.  Her human body finally protested the clumsy position, legs numb from the knees down.

“I hate to interrupt, sugar,” she said, “but I guess I’d better stand on my own.  And I’m sorry to keep crying all over you like this.”  Dae made it to his sofa before her legs gave out and clung to him as her tears continued.  The taste of salt seasoned her kisses.

            The door chime startled them and they backed apart.  Dae wiped at her face as Data called permission to enter.

            Picard and Riker stopped short when they saw her.  The captain asked if she was all right.  She could only look at him and swipe at the tears, so the android replicated a large handkerchief and explained her homesickness.  It worried Picard, considering the suggestion he and Riker had come to make, but they could only make the offer and wait for her answer.

            “We have come to some decisions,” he began, “concerning your respective situations.  First—Commander Data, after due deliberation”—Riker grinned encouragement—“I have decided not to pursue a court-martial.  I will place a reprimand in your record, but you are hereby returned to full duty status and may resume your regular schedule beginning with your next shift.”

            The captain went on, “As to Miss Hutchins.”  He saw the fear in her eyes and softened his stern expression.  “I called a full staff meeting to evaluate your case.

            “Once you were here, we could not simply abandon you to your fate, especially as we have no way of determining what that fate might have been.  You must understand,” he said at her growing unease, “that I am responsible, not just for my ship and crew, but for those with whom we interact.  Every contact, even the simplest, can have far-reaching repercussions.  In your case, I had to balance the security of the ship with the most appropriate resolution of your difficulty.”

            The staff’s consensus of opinion was tentative, but consensus it was.  Miss Hutchins should remain aboard the _Enterprise_.

            Dae’s eyes widened.  “Remain aboard, Captain?”

            He smiled at her.  “Prepare to return with us to our time when our repairs are complete.”

            Data turned to Dae, whose expression of pleased disbelief mirrored his.  She said, “I guess you haven’t gotten rid of me yet, my friend.”

            “Thank you, Captain,” said Data.  “This is pleasantly unexpected on all fronts.”

            “Commander Riker will assign you guest quarters once our estimable CMO releases you from sickbay,” Picard said.  “You’ll have full access to the library computer; I recommend you start bringing yourself up to speed on the history between your time and ours.  I’m sure Mr. Data will assist your transition in every possible way.  Have we covered everything, Number One?”

            The grinning first officer agreed that they had, noted that Dae looked a trifle stunned, and suggested letting her get used to the idea.  She came to herself enough to thank the officers for their good news and echoed Data’s good-bye.

            “What will happen to me in your time, Data?”

            “I do not know,” he admitted.  “There are many possibilities.  Perhaps it would be best not to concern yourself with the potentials at this juncture.  It will be several days before engine repairs and testing are completed.  Any definite decision should probably be postponed,” he went on, his voice slowing as Dae leaned toward him, “until after the temporal transition.”

            That she spent the better part of thirty minutes nestled against him, her position conducive to repeated osculatory activity, demonstrated her unspoken agreement with his advice.

 

            Crusher released Dae the next morning, saying only that she should come back for a final check the following day.  Riker assigned her to a guest suite and Data, Cinnamon perched on his shoulder, escorted her there to demonstrate the replicator and other technologies.

 

            The news that Dae would return to the future with the _Enterprise_ sent a shock wave through the crew.

            Dae kept a low profile.  She felt everyone staring, as if wondering what made her special enough for the captain, the staunchest upholder of the Prime Directive in all its parts, to utterly ignore it.

            When Guinan heard the news, her time sense rebelled with such force it made her head spin.  She examined her reaction.  Was it personal?  No, Guinan liked Dae, and thought that her protecting Data made her worthy of the opportunities the future could offer.

            And nothing alerted the bartender’s sensitivities about people.  Dae must be fit, mentally and physically, or Troi and Crusher would never have agreed to her staying.

            Then what was the problem?  Nothing aroused Guinan’s doubts until the decision was made public, and then it was as if every klaxon on the ship went off at once and only she heard the clamor.  It had to be time-related.  But how _could_ it be, when the records showed Dae had died?

            Her thoughts froze.  “Guinan to Picard.”  She asked if she could talk to him.  “Now.”

            Picard was more than a little curious, since she was not ordinarily one to rush.  “Of course.  In my ready room?”

            “That’s fine, Captain.  I’ll be right up.”

 

            Data sat at Ops making sure the energy required for engine repairs was diverted from other systems with minimum inconvenience.  Then, after his bridge duty ended, he would join La Forge to assess the drive system prior to testing.

            Perhaps a small part of his attention wandered from the console he monitored.  When the ship went back, Dae would be with him.  The idea pleased him.  He would have missed her.  In fact, he had missed her very much during their week apart.  Too, her cautious expressions of gratitude intrigued him, and they were becoming progressively less cautious, in private at any rate.

            He thought more about their relationship, its phases and odd twists.  Had it been a musical composition, he would have said it moved from _pianissimo_ to _mezzo-forte_ to _piano_ to _forte_ , never quite falling silent, though the period after their trip to Las Vegas rang like a death knell.

            Data found the musical analogy unsatisfactory.  Perhaps a garden?  Yes—their first weeks together like readying the soil for planting, then watching their friendship grow, seeing it send up shoots and leaves.  The aftermath of Las Vegas could then be likened to…what?  He decided drought was the closest parallel and evaluated the whole analogy.  “Hmm.  Quite satisfactory,” he said under his breath, and suddenly found Ro looking at him from the conn.  She smiled in that irreverent way she had, and Data made a mental note not to talk to himself in public.

            Their “garden” lay fallow for several weeks after Las Vegas, grew again after the incident with Kee, and budded with potential following her mother’s death.  By the time he left her a few days ago, it seemed ready to burst into profuse bloom.

            He wondered if it still could.  Data decided to ask Dae.  A brief smile crossed his face.

            The lift doors slid apart a few minutes later and Guinan stepped onto the bridge.  She paused an instant, then walked down the curved ramp to the ready room.  Data nodded to her, but her look back as the doors shut behind her was uneasy.

            Data looked at the doors another moment before returning his attention to his console.

            Twenty minutes later, Picard’s voice called for Riker.  Giving Data the bridge, the first officer disappeared behind the ready room doors.

            Thirty more minutes passed before Guinan came out again.  She looked at Data for a second and seemed calmer, but not happy.  No, not at all happy.  Sorry, but resolute.

            In six minutes, both Troi and Jenna came onto the bridge and hurried to the ready room.

            “Busy place,” commented Macombrey from Ops.  Ro agreed in an undertone and they speculated on the reasons.

            Data allowed them sixty seconds.  “The level of activity in the captain’s ready room is not a subject which requires your attention.  Please confine yourselves to your duties.”

            Had either one really known what was happening behind those livelier-than-normal doors, however, the android might have let them continue.

            When the ready room emptied, Data relinquished the captain’s chair and returned to Ops, studying the faces of his fellow officers.  He knew that if he needed to know the topic of discussion he would be informed, but he could not stop himself from wondering.

            Troi and Jenna whispered together before Jenna left the bridge, her eyes avoiding Data’s.  The counselor watched her go, looked at Data, but took her usual seat.  The captain and Riker evaded the android’s eyes, yet he felt their gaze on him when he turned back to his console.

 

            Over a cup of tea, Guinan said there was no rational explanation for her misgivings.  Still, the idea of Dae Hutchins traveling to the twenty-fourth century with them _felt_ profoundly wrong.

            It put Picard in an awkward spot.  His officers’ opinions of Miss Hutchins had been quite persuasive, and knowing how disordered her life had been after meeting Data, he had come to believe their decision was for the best.  And now he was faced with the chance that it was not only not right, but disastrous.  Vague as Guinan’s perceptions were, their accuracy was often uncanny, and he was forced to accept the possibility.

            But how to know?  Each time he reached a decision, something happened to change his mind.  What could prove, or disprove, her contention?  Deadlocked, he called on Riker.

            He suggested they stick with plans as they stood.  With all respect to Guinan, he believed there was too little evidence to justify abandoning Dae to whatever fate Q might engineer for her.

            They went round and round, Guinan and Riker sticking to their guns and Picard adrift in the middle.  At last he called a halt, thanked the bartender, and continued to talk with Riker.

            It was he who suggested bringing in D’Sora, since she had had as much success during the search as anyone.  The captain then added Troi, whose innate and professional talents he needed.

            Bringing them up to date, Picard asked Troi’s opinion.  The empath sat back and consulted her awareness.  Dae’s physical self was very nearly healed.  “Emotionally, she’s quite vulnerable, sir.  She has lost her whole way of life, after a year any of us might find traumatic.  On the other hand, she’s excited about going with us, as if she’s living a cherished dream.

            “But Captain, Miss Hutchins isn’t the only one we need to consider.”  The empath sighed deeply.  “Data is very…attached to her, if his behavior toward her is an accurate indication.”

            “‘Attached,’ Counselor?” Picard snorted.  “If he had feelings, I’d call him besotted!”  Riker’s grin disappeared at the captain’s stern look.  “So you believe we should consider not just Miss Hutchins, but Data as well?”

            Troi nodded.  “He has proven he’s willing to risk his career for her.  Our reasons for leaving her behind must be so compelling, he’ll have no choice but to agree, however reluctantly.”

            “Very well,” the captain agreed at last.  “We are duty-bound to investigate Guinan’s contention.  Lieutenant D’Sora, I hope you can add to your successes in this inquiry.  Recheck our own records, as well as the Terran downloads, for any further mention of Miss Hutchins.  If you find none, we’ll proceed as planned and hope Guinan’s intuition is faulty this time.  If you do…we’ll do what we must to assure the future’s proper path.”

            “I understand, Captain.”  D’Sora hesitated.  “But wouldn’t Data be a better choice?  He could be done before I even got started, and my track record wouldn’t matter.”

            He raised one brow.  “If I’m going to cut out a man’s heart, Lieutenant,” he answered, “I won’t ask him to hand me the scalpel.  Were I faced with this possibility, I’d prefer as much time together as possible without such uncertainty.  It’s the least I can do for Data.”

 

            D’Sora went to her quarters to set up yet another data-retrieval program and think about Troi’s words.  Data retrieval was becoming a habit, one she liked less and less.  Jealousy was also becoming a habit, and jealousy of Dae was the cause Troi whispered for Jenna’s suggestion that Data perform the records search.  The captain was right, it was too cruel to be done, and saying it in the first place was beneath a Starfleet officer.

Heaving a deep sigh, she activated her console and began by making her newest inquiry restricted, leaving no chance that Data could find it by accident as he monitored ship operations.  _If the captain doesn’t want the “patient” holding the knife,_ she mused, _then that patient shouldn’t know the knife exists, should he?_

            Hours passed.  The first search picked through the Terran downloads, but there were no other signs of Dae Hutchins.  The more daunting task of searching the ship’s database loomed ahead.  She called La Forge to beg a postponement of their date.

            “I was just about to call you,” he replied.  “Data and I are knee-deep in the warp drive right now.  I think we’ll be ready to start testing in a couple of hours.”  He lowered his voice.  “But I’ll keep in touch, Jenna.  Maybe the evening doesn’t have to be a total loss.  La Forge out.”

            Grinning in spite of herself, she went back to work.

 

            “You and Jenna seem to have become close,” Data observed after La Forge closed the channel.  They were crawling through a Jeffries tube on the way to check the alignment of another plasma conduit.  An exhaustive examination of the warp coils’ surface repairs awaited them.  With luck, warp power would be back on line in a few hours.

            The engineer grinned.  “That’s an understatement, Data.  She’s not at all who I thought she was.”  He glanced at the android.  “Does it bother you that we’re together?”

            “Not at all,” Data replied.  “I am pleased Jenna has found the happiness she could not find with me.  And I wish you to be happy, also.”

La Forge nodded and said, very casually, “As far as that goes, you seem to have made Miss Hutchins pretty happy.  Have you picked up where you left off?”

            “Not to this point, Geordi,” replied Data.  “Dae’s recuperation has been paramount.  To attempt to move our relationship forward under the circumstances seemed unsuitable.”

            La Forge nodded and said, “You’re probably right, but she’s out of sickbay now, and the captain’s decided to bring her along when we go home.  Do you think—”

            “Please, Geordi,” Data said.  He understood his friend’s curiosity, was just as curious about La Forge’s liaison with Jenna.  But questions of that nature could be intrusive, so he did not ask.  And that was the thought which made him gently interrupt La Forge’s probing—however well meant, it struck too close to an area Data considered private.

            He was even surprised to find he did consider it private, since most of his life had been the proverbial open book, whether he wished it or not.  Now he said, “I have not yet discussed the subject with Dae, though I believe I should.”  He stopped in sudden realization, and La Forge looked back at him.  “It appears we both have compelling reasons to expedite our inspections.”

            The engineer clapped him on the shoulder when he caught up again.  “La Forge to engineering teams.  Let’s get this show on the road, people!” he called over his comm link, chuckling.  “Some of us have places to go and people to meet!”

 


	32. Chapter 32

32

 

 

            Dae read at her console.  The first book she chose traced the history of the Federation, how two disparate cultures, Terran and Vulcan, had come to influence most of the known worlds.

            It left Dae feeling hopeful on one hand, too far behind the times on the other.  The magnitude of what she planned to do—to leave not just her home, but her planet; to go, not a few hundred miles from all she knew, but light-years, and so quickly that relativity was left behind!  To begin by going _four hundred years_ into her own future!

            She switched to a text dealing with the near future, and was stunned by what humanity would inflict upon itself in the next hundred years as if the Eugenics Wars held no lessons.  The resurgence of ideas better forgotten would culminate in Colonel Green’s genocidal World War III.  Dae was ill from reading about the horrors committed in and after that war.

            Yet Earth would survive the carnage wrought by one species, the species survive to grow wiser, maturing at last into the interstellar society of the twenty-fourth century.  A planet of peace and prosperity allied with more than a hundred like-minded worlds.  It staggered her imagination.

            She pushed her chair back from the console and stretched, then glanced down to see Cinnamon seated at her feet with a serious expression on his face.  He uttered one plaintive little mew and jumped to her shoulder, bumping his head against hers.  It occurred to Dae that she had spent more than seventeen hours hunched over a computer terminal.  First she ordered dinner for the cat, then asked the computer where Data was.

            The android was still in engineering working on the warp drive, a concept she still found as far over her head as the sky itself.  Some things you had to take on faith, and if Data said the ship moved faster than light, then it did.  The whole thing was impossible otherwise, and one look at the android proved that “impossible” was a word with very little meaning in his time and place.

            She ate dinner in a subdued mood.  Her right hand rubbed her left forearm, the site of the deepest wound caused by Xavier’s eager knife.  All her injuries were mended; still, Crusher had warned her about phantom pain as the nerves regenerated.  Dae rubbed harder.  For a phantom, she thought, it itched like hell!  She imagined Xavier fading away as the tingle vanished.

            After dinner, she wandered the cabin a while and ended up by the replicator.  She ordered a sketch pad and drawing pencils and took them back to the table.  The pencils moved over the paper, jagged lines of color giving life to the horror she exorcised as she drew.  The interior of the makeup trailer took shape, then the billionaire and his henchmen as they appeared that night.

            Max wore a look of avarice, a man whose desperation surpassed his ethics.  Alec stood beside him, impassive, loyal.  Xavier, filled by dark passion, held a blade dull with her blood.

            She studied the drawing.  Yes, it was right, down to the creases in Max’s face, and Dae shuddered, then flipped to a clean page.  This sketch began with a sardonic, taunting mouth, and soon Q stood wreathed in smoke, his uniform shirt the same shade as her blood on Xavier’s knife, his hand motioning to the door behind him.  She heard it slam in her mind.

            Another clean page, another horrific picture: her cats dead in her bed so soon after she had dreamed of sharing it with Data.  She drove herself to depict the scene as Troi described it and went cold.  Page after page received the enormity of her grief.

            Eventually, happier memories took shape.  The hiatus party with Cluny teaching Data the two-step.  The Halloween party, and Data expounding on tidal forces as sunset colored his made-up face a warm rose and the breeze riffled his “hair.”

            The last several pictures were all of Data: fighting off the bums, seeing his new persona for the first time, after their lesson on how to kiss, and how she thought they looked as they kissed beneath the mistletoe.  Dae pried the pencil from her cramped fingers.  That was the image she wanted to see, and one other.  Her pencils flew to make one last sketch—Data, wearing a T-shirt and briefs, his skin and eyes gleaming a soft gold in the light from one cheap motel lamp.

            Dae shoved the ugly drawings into the reclamation unit and took the last two to the sleeping area to prop them up on a low table.  Then she stripped and fell into bed, smiling.

 

            She woke when Cin demanded breakfast.  With the cat taken care of, she could prepare for the day.  After a sonic shower and some research with the computer, she ordered a long-sleeved dress in a swirling print of pale yellows and greens.  It had a crossover bodice and slit skirt, with tights and shoes in the same green.  Adding a hair clip with a matching velvet bow, she looked in the mirror and thought her reflection looked so cheerful, she had to laugh.

            Data came for her after breakfast.  Repairs and inspections had kept him in engineering until his next shift as bridge duty officer.  That shift was now over, he said, and La Forge did not require his help during the restart sequence, so he came to see how Dae progressed.

            She was happy to see him, to judge from her vivacious smile and ardent embrace.  Data judged himself remiss at neglecting her for so many hours, and apologized so humbly, she could not have been angry if she’d wanted to be.  She was on her way to visit Crusher for another check-up, she said, and the android offered to go with her.

            The doctor scanned Dae, pronounced her fit, and asked what her plans were.

            She shrugged and looked over at Data.  He suggested the ship’s arboretum, and she nodded.  “I always liked the ones at home,” Dae said.  “This ship’s must be fascinating.”

            Crusher agreed, her grin mischievous.  “Data will be the perfect guide, won’t you, Data?”

            The android blinked.  “I would never go so far as to claim perfection, doctor.  I shall, however, endeavor to function adequately in that capacity.”

            Dae giggled at his cautious words and slid from the examining table.  “My dear man,” she said as she tucked her arm through his, “I find it difficult to believe there are any capacities in which you don’t function adequately, and then some!”  She laughed again at his surprised smile and pulled him into the hall.  “You can tell me all about the arboretum.  Thanks, Dr. Crusher!”

 

            The tour lasted a long time, since Data took Dae at her word and told her all about everything.  She was attentive, interrupting him only for questions.  The android found it a most congenial way to spend time.

            Afterwards he suggested Ten-Forward, but Dae asked if they could skip it.  “Certainly, if you wish,” he said, and skipped two ungainly steps down the corridor before she stopped him.

            “No, Data,” she giggled.  “I meant, can we postpone it?  I feel like it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, I’d like to spend time with just you.”  She blushed.

            “That would be acceptable,” he replied, “and thank you for the implied compliment.”  Her blush deepened.  Confused, he asked, “Will my quarters be satisfactory, or shall we go to yours?”

            “Yours, by all means!” Dae said with a grimace.  “I spent way too much time in mine yesterday, I’m a little sick of them.”  She hushed him before the inevitable apology could form.  “That wasn’t criticism, sweetheart, just a statement of fact.  Shall we go?”

            She held his arm and part of his mind noted how pleasant it was to be with her, and in physical contact.  The positive associations left by their earlier interactions remained strong, and he had a sense of satisfaction at their continuance.  Data also noted the endearment, and found it was not unwelcome.  La Forge’s expressed curiosity had indeed had an effect.  Today Data would broach the topic and then, as humans were wont to say, they would see.

            They ate a friendly meal.  Data answered her questions about the ship’s functions, the Academy, the duties required of Starfleet service.  There was more than idle curiosity behind her queries, he thought, an idea he mentioned aloud.

            Dae gave him a pained glance.  “You’re right.  I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do when we get back to your time.”

            H e looked concerned.  “I do not understand, Dae.  Can you explain your anxiety?”

“The gist of it is,” she sighed, “I don’t know how to make a living anymore.”

            Neither of her degrees seemed to be in great demand in the twenty-fourth century, she said, and her entire education was little better than kindergarten.

            The android’s confusion deepened.  “The concept of ‘making a living’ no longer applies, Dae.  You may spend your life doing whatever you wish.  You have many artistic talents; you will have ample opportunity to develop others, if you wish.  There is no ‘need’ to work—”

            “Yes, there is,” she cut in.  “My need.  To do something with my life, contribute in some way.  I _can’t_ be idle all my life, Mom poured the Puritan work ethic into me with my baby food!”

            He searched his database for the reference.  “Ah.  I am not certain that you have fully assimilated what you read.”  He tried to be concise.  “There is no lack of any basic need on any Federation planet.  Abundant food and water, pure air, everything necessary to care for the physical body is available to all.

            “To learn, Dae, is the great work of humankind, to add to the sum of human knowledge.  Even Starfleet, though it has military uses, was founded to expand knowledge.”  Data performed an action she had done many times to him, and covered her hand with his.  “Do you recall my telling you of the three humans we discovered in the cryonic-suspension satellite?

            “One man had been very wealthy, concerned only with profit and power.  It took him a long time to understand that money no longer existed in many places.

            “He also believed he had outlived his usefulness.  Yet he came to realize that some of his talents, those he used to evaluate people and situations, for example, could still be of use.”

            Data added a percentage point or two to his grip on her hand.  “Dae, you have not outlived your usefulness!  There are many ways to put your artistry to use—you can paint, sculpt, or draw.  You could teach; while the materials have changed somewhat, the basic principles—”

            “None of those things will help me stay with you, will they?  I’ll never get into the Academy, let alone graduate!  Even if I did, I don’t suppose just anyone gets posted to the _Enterprise_.  And do you honestly expect Captain Picard to offer me a job as an art instructor?  Damn,” she muttered, wiping her face.  “I wish I’d stop crying!”

            Data patted her hand and tried to engineer a way out of their dilemma, because he had discovered that he did not wish to be parted from her, either.  He did not, could not, love her, but she was more important to him than almost anyone else in his life.

            The answer came quite suddenly, a very simple answer that promised to solve the problem for both of them.  Provided Dae agreed to it.  “There is another way people come to be on board, Dae.  Have you noticed the children?”

She nodded.  “The crew is allowed, even encouraged, to bring their families aboard.”

            Dae’s expression was wary.  Data thought that, were he subject to the vagaries of emotion, his heart might very well be accelerating at this moment.

            “Dae,” he whispered, and closed his hand around hers with just the right degree of firmness, “Dae, be my family.  Be my family and stay with me.”

            She swallowed.  “I’m too old for you to adopt as your child, Data, and I don’t think being sister and brother would get the captain to let me stay.”

            “Neither of those is the bond I intended.”  He paused again, checked for some sign that he should drop the idea, for she must know what he meant by now.  But her only response was the trembling of her hand in his.  “If you wish us to stay together, Dae, if you truly wish to stay with me, perhaps you would consider…becoming my wife.  Spouses are most definitely permitted.”

            Eyes wide, she looked at him for a long moment.  Then a tiny quirk of her lips bloomed to a grin and she reached across the table, practically dragging the android to her for a kiss as Lal had done to Riker.  Data believed he understood the shock on the commander’s face.  And Dae’s eyes held the same look as they had in her room the night the Away Team had come for him.

            She strolled to his sofa, sat down, and stretched out one hand to him.  Data joined her, held her in his arms, kissed her as she had taught him.  Dae grew pliant in his embrace, passionate, and he wished again he could experience even a small part of what she evidently felt.  They parted and he studied her face with intense interest.  “Dae, is that what is known as ‘bedroom eyes’?”

            Her throaty chuckle answered him first.  Then her voice, filled with nuances he barely recognized, said, “If it’s an accurate reflection of my mood, it must be!  By the way, the answer to your proposal is a definitive yes!”  She went back to kissing him.

            “But I do not have a bedroom.  To this point I have never required a bed.”

            “That’s all right, sugar,” she said.  “I’m adaptable.”  She did something to the fastening of her dress and slipped out of the bodice before putting her arms around him again.  Data was running out of adjectives to describe the intensity of her actions.  What came after “incendiary”?

            He felt her shift position.  She leaned back against the arm of the sofa and pulled him with her.  It occurred to him that she intended to consummate their relationship at once, despite the lack of a bed.  “Dae, are you absolutely sure?  I still cannot love you.”

            “I know, Data.  I guess I’ll just have to have enough love for both of us.”  She kissed him in a way that was unmistakable, even to him.  “Frankly, I think we’ve waited long enough.  And can you think of a more logical way to commemorate our engagement?”

            The android actually spent fourteen nanoseconds researching alternate means of celebration.  “While there are many that are equally logical,” he admitted in a low voice, as long as his lips were in the neighborhood of her ear, “I am unable to state unequivocally that any are _more_ logical.”  So he gave his full and complete attention to the method she endorsed, and wondered when he should begin demonstrating the first of his multiple techniques.

            Judging from Dae’s reactions, he thought it should be soon.  Almost immediately, in fact.

            Data’s communicator emitted a peremptory chirp.  “Picard to Commander Data.”

            A rather ungraceful, and apparently ticklish to Dae, movement of his arm allowed him to tap his communicator.  “Data here.”  Dae tried not to laugh.

            “Commander, please report to the observation lounge, and bring Miss Hutchins with you.”

            “Acknowledged, sir.  Data out.”  He looked at her and found the changed perspective of this position most enlightening.  Her eyes glowed in the reflected light.  The ultimate enlightenment, however, would have to wait.  “We cannot ignore the captain’s summons, Dae.”

            “I know,” she replied with a disappointed sigh.  “But am I allowed to observe that he has absolutely atrocious timing?  A trait,” she pouted, “he seems to share with Commander Riker.”

            “As long as you express such an opinion only to me, I suppose it would be permissible.”  He turned, giving her privacy to return her clothes to the proper configuration.

            Frustrated as she was, Dae had to laugh at his earnest statement.  Smoothing the last wrinkles from the fabric and rearranging the hair clip, she raised her face for another kiss, which he granted with alacrity.  “I just hope this doesn’t take too long.”

            Data told her he hoped the same thing.

 

            The other officers were already there, including D’Sora, who looked uncomfortable and avoided the android’s gaze.

            Data escorted Dae to a chair at the end of the table, opposite the captain.  He pulled out the chair beside her for himself but Picard instructed him to take his usual seat.

            The captain faced Dae.  She was, he had to admit, lovely, sitting there with her eyes aglow and a becoming blush on her cheeks.  The particular pattern and colors she wore brought to mind a beam of sunshine filtered through new leaves.  A most charming woman.

            Which did nothing to make his duty easier to bear.  It was now or never, he supposed.  Rarely had he so wished it could be never.

            “Miss Hutchins.”  Her smile and blush faded at the tone of his voice.  The voice of doom.  Picard certainly felt like it.  “Miss Hutchins, I’m very sorry, but some new information has come to light.  I regret that we cannot allow you to accompany us to our time after all.”

            With each word, Dae saw her chance of a future with Data die.  But this time she wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.  The android watched her expression change, become the same cold stare she had used on him the night of her reunion.  “And they say women are fickle,” Dae snapped, and had the satisfaction of seeing the captain flush.  The other reactions she ignored, except Data’s, and he was actually speechless.  “So when I’m all ready to go back, will you call another meeting, _sir_ , and tell me it was a mistake, of course I can come with you?”

            “My dear young woman,” Picard began, but he got no farther.

            “Number one, Captain, I am _not_ your ‘dear young woman,’ and number two, who the bloody hell do you think you are to go playing with peoples’ lives like this?”

            Troi looked at Dae with a good deal of concern.  “Miss Hutchins, please—”

            Dae turned a scathing glance on the empath.  “ _Et tu_ , Counselor?  I’ve been ‘Dae’ to you for the last week, and now I’m ‘Miss Hutchins’ again?  I thought we, at least, were friends.”

            “Dae, listen,” Crusher pleaded, “you’re not being fair to Deanna, or to Captain Picard.”

            “Oh, like he’s being fair to me?” Dae spat back.  “Look, I didn’t ask to find Data fending off muggers, or to take him in and watch him become the best friend I’ve ever had!”  Data’s pleased expression at her words nearly took the wind from her sails, but she pressed on.

            “I didn’t ask to end up on Max Sinclair’s hit list, either,” and Troi got a clear sense that Dae was venting a great deal of frustration with the situation, “or nearly get killed by him, then rescued—thank you again, Data—and treated like a ping-pong ball!  ‘You can go back, no, you can’t, you’re dead, no, you have to go back after all.’  Don’t _I_ have a say in what happens to me?  Or has your marvelous future done away with free will?”  She rose and started toward the door.

            Data stood up to follow her but Picard’s look sat him down again and sent Worf instead.  The Klingon interposed himself between Dae and the door.  “Planning to throw me out the window?” she demanded.  “That’d be one way to get me out of your hair, I suppose.”

            “No, Miss Hutchins,” he replied in a growl, “but if you continue to behave like a child, you may force me to treat you as one.  I never had to administer a spanking to my son for a temper tantrum, but it cannot be all that difficult a technique to learn.”

            She crossed her arms and looked him dead in the eye.  “You and what army, pal?  You wouldn’t dare.”

            He also crossed his arms, drew himself up to his full height and glared down at her from that imposing altitude.  “Yes,” he said, “I would.”

            “This has gone far enough, Miss Hutchins!” Picard said.  “At least do me the courtesy of listening to me before tempting my security chief to commit an indignity upon your person!”

            Slowly, Dae dropped her arms to sides.  They watched as her fist clenched, then released, and she took several deep breaths.  “All right,” she said at last.  “I’ll listen.  But what if I still don’t agree with your decision?”  She turned around and met Picard’s eyes, challenging him.

            “If our evidence doesn’t convince you,” he told her, “you’ll return with us to the twenty-fourth century.”  There was a collective gasp and he continued, “Miss Hutchins is correct.  It is her life, and if she remains unconvinced, we have no right to force her to remain against her will.  But it is, nonetheless, our duty to present what we’ve discovered, and we must leave it to _her_ sense of duty to act appropriately.”  They looked from one to the other, Data as confused as Dae, since he had no idea to what evidence the captain referred, hoping it would not be convincing.

            The captain, however, seemed rather more confident than not, and the android prepared himself for another unwished-for loss.

            Picard recapped Guinan’s intuitions and the ensuing investigation.  D’Sora’s head dipped lower but she forced herself to return their looks.  Her own dismay was obvious, and Dae could not blame the officer for doing her duty.  No matter how personally painful the results might be.

            At the captain’s nod, the lieutenant activated the viewscreen.  Dae was shocked, and Data seemed equally startled:  the woman shown had golden-brown hair, and both eyes were a warm brown.  The nose was a little different, as was the chin, but the curve of eyebrow and lip and cheek, the expression, the tilt of the head—all were unmistakably Dae’s.

            D’Sora’s first search of the _Enterprise_ database, using Dae’s name, turned up something so unbelievable that she reported it to Picard at once, something he forbade her to tell anyone else.  She then expanded her search into the graphics files with Dae’s image as the reference point.

            “I found this,” D’Sora said, resisting the sympathy she felt.  “From the accompanying text, this was a travel document, a passport, issued to Solange Heubrette of France.”  D’Sora’s eyes rested for a moment on Dae.  “No earlier records of the period mention any such person.”

            Riker spoke, and his sympathy was clear.  “We think this means we created a new identity for you, so the people who attacked you before couldn’t find you, and let you remain in your native time frame.”  Let her remain….  Like they were doing her some kind of favor.

            Each of them looked at the woman alone at the end of the table, her isolation begun.  Her stricken face reflected her hatred of the theory, and her acceptance of its truth.

            The next part of the meeting—which felt more like a sentencing—required even more delicacy.  It also went counter to Crusher’s strenuous objections, but Picard had no choice.

            “What I would like to do now, Miss Hutchins,” he said, his voice neutral, “is ask that you allow Dr. Crusher to begin the permanent alterations to your appearance.  And while you’re in sickbay, I’d like your permission for the doctor to attempt a synaptic pathway adjustment.”

            “Captain, I’ve told you I can’t guarantee the safety of such an attempt!” Crusher protested again.  “The other cases were short-term memory, not long-term.  The chance of full erasure with no concomitant damage is incredibly slim!”

            “I’m well aware of that, Doctor!”  O’Brien would have recognized the steely tone.  “But I believe it is in Miss Hutchins’ best interests if—”

            “No.”  The single syllable came from Dae’s end of the table.  She met the combined gaze of eight officers with a sort of resigned determination.  “I have a better idea.  To hell with that picture,” she said with a nod to the screen, “just finish what Max started and kill me.”

            “Miss Hutchins!”  Picard was appalled but she talked through his protests.

            “Can’t you see that death would be more…merciful,” she said, her lips twisting with bitterness, “than stealing my memories of Data?  That’s what you mean, isn’t it?  To have the doctor excise my memories of ‘things to come,’ including Data?”  Picard had the grace to flush again.  “Well, I agree with Dr. Crusher, but not for medical reasons.”  Pain thickened her voice.  “Data’s been part of my life for nearly a year, and he truly is my best friend.  We’ve weathered so much, he’s helped me survive so many things….”  Not even the Klingon missed the emotion in the gaze she turned on the android.

            “How can you think to take Data from my mind when there are so many other memories attached to him?  For all I’ve lost since I met him, since I’ve known him,” she smiled a magnificent, bittersweet smile, “I’ve gained so much.  Please, Captain.  Please don’t take Data away from me.”  And as strong as she was trying to be, she laid her head on her arms and wept.

            Whatever else he might be, Jean-Luc Picard was a compassionate man.  He also had a talent for knowing when he was beaten.  “Very well, Miss Hutchins.  The good doctor would never perform the procedure, anyway.”  Dae raised her head.  Picard’s face held the ghost of a smile.  “Still, we must try to preclude any inadvertent revelations of a time not your own.”

            “What about hypnosis, sir?” Troi offered.  “I could implant a strong prohibition against revealing anything about the future.”

            Dae nodded.  She would agree to almost anything, as long as they left her memories of Data alone.  “You could add a physical deterrent to the suggestion, nausea or something.”

            The captain asked Troi if she could devise some suitably deterring ailment.  “Yes, sir, I believe so.  It goes against my inclinations, but it’s the best compromise I can offer.”

            The room fell quiet, reluctance to speak hanging in the air.  Picard made himself say, “Are there any other comments or recommendations?”

            “I volunteer to remain behind with Dae,” Data said at once.  “To protect her, since it is my fault she was endangered.  It seems only proper that I safeguard her.”

            Everyone objected, with the strongest protest coming from Dae.  “I can’t let you do that, Data.  I couldn’t be sure you’d be safe.”

            “But Dae,” he began, “it is both logical and appropriate—”

            “No, don’t you see, if I know you’re okay, I can live with it.  Somehow.  But if you’re with me, I’ll be worried sick every moment that Max would find you.  I can’t be happy if you’re in danger, no matter how much….”  She swallowed hard.

            The android studied her face and nodded, and said, “As you wish, Dae.  I understand.”

            Somehow, she knew he did.

 

            The next few days were busy.  La Forge got the engines back on-line and Picard ordered the ship out of the sector for testing.  Crusher did some minor plastic surgery, altered Dae’s hair and eye color, and temporarily increased her follicles’ replenishment rate.  Her hair was soon long enough for Mr. Mot to style it as it appeared in the passport photo.

            Data, when not working with La Forge, was with Dae.  He designed a comprehensive course in French, and he and Picard tutored her in all the other things she needed to know.

            D’Sora’s task, overseen by Worf, was the forging of the documentation Dae needed for her new identity—including the fateful passport.

            The last step would have to wait until the ship was back in orbit.  The money from Data’s earnings and gambling winnings totaled well over four million dollars.  He would transfer those funds to several discreet Cayman Islands banks in Dae’s new name.  For she had decided to pose as a French émigré and buy a place on Guadeloupe where she could work, perhaps build a life, far from everything she held most dear—including the android who meant so much to her.

            They never did pick up where they left off before that fateful summons.  Dae said that the knowledge they had no future together was too painful to bear, no matter the joy she might find in his arms.  All Dae could envision was a momentary happiness and a lifetime of sorrow after losing him once and for all.  Still, they spent as much time together as possible, Dae cuddled against him, storing more memories for Troi to lock behind posthypnotic walls.

            At last the _Enterprise_ was as ready as La Forge and his staff could make her.  Dae’s new persona was finalized and the ship went back to Earth.  O’Brien beamed all Dae’s luggage, except Cinnamon’s carrier and one carryon bag, into a will-call area at the airport in Pointe-à-Pitre.

            On the bridge, Picard assumed Data would wish to see Miss Hutchins off.

            Data very much wished to.  The captain nodded.  As the android left Ops, Picard said, “I hope you realize, Data, that I regret this course of action, but the facts left me no choice.”

            “Thank you, sir.  With your permission, I will convey your remarks to Dae.”

            “Convey my thanks to her, also,” Picard added.  Data nodded and entered the turbolift.

            Picard looked at his first officer and inclined his head once.  “All hands!” Riker called out.  “Battle stations!  Prepare for temporal transition!”

 

            Dae set Cin’s carrier on the transporter pad as red-alert lights strobed.  “I guess this is good-bye, Data,” she said in French.

            “Yes.  I wish it were not,” he replied in the same tongue.  “I have recreated the painting I did for you.  It is with your luggage.”  He paused.  “I must return to the bridge.”

            “I know.”  Yet she just stood there, drinking in the sight of him against the drought that would last the rest of her life, all she wanted to say locked behind a tremulous smile.

            O’Brien knew better than Data what was going on, even if it was in French.  His poetic Irish heart rebelling against the inevitable, he cleared his throat to get their attention, then did a snappy about-face.

            The android was a touch slow picking up the hint, but Dae was not—she threw her arms around Data’s neck and pressed a lingering kiss on his lips, then whispered, “I love you, Data.”

            And as he had done once before, when faced with that same sentiment by his dying daughter, Data said the only thing he could.  “I wish I could feel it with you.”

            Dae kissed him again.  “You will, sugar.  Someday, I know you will.”  One last hug, one last kiss, and she mounted the pad.  O’Brien energized the system at Data’s command.

            She vanished from his life in a blue shimmer of energy.  “Thank you, Chief.”

            “Glad to be of service, sir,” the Irishman replied.  Data returned to the bridge.

 

            As the _Enterprise_ made the jump home, Mme. Solange Heubrette presented her papers to a very bored customs officer, then went to collect her bags as Cin howled a protest at his captivity.


	33. Chapter 33

33

 

 

            Five days later, the _Enterprise_ stood in synchronous orbit over Maledin VIII.  Everything on Earth, and throughout the Federation, was as it should be.

            Worf and Alexander’s tresh hunt with Sthal and Threrr had been that morning.  It was a great success and augured well for the coming mating.  And now, in Ten-Forward in the midst of a large crowd, Worf sat with Crusher and a miserable Troi.  Miserable because she was in the process of choking down the first of many mouthfuls of writhing, wriggling gagh.

            Data and La Forge sat nearby, pondering a message from the bridge.  A courier ship had beamed over two large parcels and an encrypted subspace message packet from Starfleet Archives for Data.  The outermost message said the sealed packet had arrived at the Archives in 2172.

            “I can think of only one person who might have originated this message, Geordi,” replied the android to his friend’s question, “but I cannot explain how Dae could have done so.  She should, logically, have been dead well over a century by then.”

            “Well, Data, take the message, for pete’s sake!” La Forge encouraged.  “If it’s from Dae, I’m sure she’ll explain how she managed it.”  He glanced at Worf pounding Troi on the back, gently, for a Klingon, helping her swallow some bregit lung.  “You won’t be missed for a while.”

            Data thanked his friend for understanding and went to his quarters.

            One package was large and about five centimeters deep.  He opened it first.

            It was the painting he had given Dae.  With a positronic shiver, he checked the message.

There was a main message within three subspace packets.  The first packet detailed the origins of the inner ones, while the second recounted the arrival of the two inner packets at the Archives.  The last outer packet was an obituary.  For Dae.

            He played the message itself.  He recognized her voice at once, though it was slower than was Dae’s wont, and held more _vibrato_ than normal.  After the first sentence, he knew why.

            She had recorded it at the age of one hundred sixteen.  In it she told him of her life from the day she left the ship, to almost the day she died.  She started a journal that first day, as if writing letters to him, and this, recorded by her in its entirety, made up the bulk of the message.  Listening to the journals would take hours, so he had the computer transcribe and play them at maximum speed, switching to the vocal record now and then to savor the sound of her voice.

            That voice grew stronger as she read, and by the final entry it was so much like the voice that had said good-bye to him a week ago, her youth might have returned.  And when the message ended, Data experienced intellectual turmoil, as close to sorrow as he had ever been.

 

            Dae spent most of the first year in virtual seclusion, awash in bitterness.  Most of the entries were ruthlessly brief, but in many Dae vented her pain.  Duty be damned, she said, she hated her life, hated Picard’s sentencing her to it in his stiff-necked slavery to The Future, even hated Data for saving her.  Each tirade was followed in a day or two by sadness and remorse, the grudging acknowledgment that none of them had any choice.

            Four more years went by for her, almost alone.  She did not avoid contact, but no real friendships developed.  She even had a lover for a year, a generous, kind man.  That, too, ended.

            Dae attributed her isolation to the posthypnotic suggestion.  Knowing there were parts of her life she could never share, she felt a barrier existed that precluded any real closeness.

            Yet after that first bitter year there was no recrimination, no railing against fate, just the admission that her life was not idyllic.  “But then,” she pointed out in her journal, “whose is?”

            Those first five years saw the end of the Eugenics Wars, Khan’s rumored escape with dozens of his fellows in a sleeper ship, the end of the millennium.  Dae painted, successfully, and sculpted with equal success.  Now and then she donated her talents as a makeup artist to theater groups or school plays.  If she was not totally happy, she was less unhappy than expected.

            Then Dae and her lover parted.  Cinnamon, leaping over the wall in chase of a butterfly, was struck by a speeding car and died in Dae’s arms.  Something changed in her, she said.  She packed up her unsold paintings, sold her home, and flew to the United States.

            “You see, my dear Data,” the age-ravaged voice said, “one of the things I studied on the _Enterprise_ was cryonic suspension, and which companies had the best records.  I had this funny idea that if I picked the right company, I could go to sleep and wake up the next day in your time.  Even if I had to wait a while before I could contact you without causing a paradox, I’d be with you eventually, and I didn’t think my being a little older than you remembered would matter.”

            “No, Dae,” he agreed, though she was long past hearing, “it would not.”

            The journal played on.

            Dae did choose a good company.  Just not the _right_ one.  She entered cryonic suspension on April 3, 2000.  She woke, not in 2367 as she hoped, but in 2103, while Earth was recovering from its nuclear winter.  The power source that kept the suspension equipment operating was finally breaking down.  She was lucky, the caretaker pointed out, to be alive at all.

            “Lucky,” echoed Data, appreciating the wryness in the cherished voice.  “Oh, Dae.”

            The technology that might have sent her back to sleep for another two hundred sixty-four years was rebuilding the devastated planet.  While she wished it otherwise, selfish and bitter, she came to terms with this final annihilation of her dreams and threw herself into that rebuilding.

            Her life was peaceful.  She made friends.  She occasionally, if rarely, indulged her pent-up desire for closeness.  She painted, and sculpted, dreamed of the life she wanted and would never have, and lived the life fate had given her.  And she grew old, saw Starfleet mature, the Romulan War, the United Federation of Planets, and conceived the idea of leaving word for the man she loved.  “And don’t quibble with your elder and say you’re an android, not a man!” she chided him with a youthful chuckle.  Data blinked—he had indeed made that observation.  How well she remembered his thought processes, even so late in her life!  “You are a man, and I hope you realize it one day, for no one else will ever be able to convince you of the truth, my love.

            “I can call you that now, Data, my only love.  I waited a few more years, to give the Federation time to…settle in, I suppose, and then the doctor told me the Grim Reaper was due.  That’s when I started recording these.  I ordered the hospital to deliver the actual books to the Archives when I die, with a few other things, but who knows if they will or not?”  Data paused the playback long enough to open the second parcel with reverent hands, and found her journals, her mother’s ring, the wedding band and pearls he had bought for her, and dozens of sketches, including their moment beneath the mistletoe.

            “I don’t quite know what you’ll think when you get these recordings.  I _am_ thinking positively, I want you to have them, but I don’t know why.  Part of me says, ‘Why not just let him remember you as you were?’  And I have no answer, dearest.

            “I have only one regret, which isn’t bad, considering the length of my life—that we never fulfilled our relationship as we’d planned.  I’m sorry now that I was so stubborn.  I think it would have been better for me to regret what did happen, instead of regretting that it never did.  You were wiser than I.

            “Please, Data, please, don’t think that the way my life turned out is your fault!  It isn’t, I promise you!  I haven’t been unhappy.  I’ve led a full, useful life, and knowing you, loving you, even for so short a time, gave me more joy than I can ever express.

            “And maybe, Data, beloved android, beloved man, maybe that’s all I wanted you to know.

            “My love to you, Data, now and always.”

            Her words reverberated through Data’s neural nets.  Dae loved him.  She spent seventy-four years, almost three times his own lifetime, loving him.  She had died loving him.

            He brought up the newspaper photos of them at the Halloween dance, and at the parade site, seeing the emotion on Dae’s face in the latter.  He wished in vain that he could have stayed with her, knew it was illogical and too late by centuries, but still he wished it, just for a moment.

            Then he called up the file D’Sora had found, the one Picard ordered him not to access until after receiving an unexpected communication.  This communication, Data realized.

            The reference D’Sora found was to a “Dae Hutchins” who left a time-affective parcel with the Starfleet Archives in 2172, addressed to Data and not to be delivered until stardate 45610 or later.  When she reported her find to Picard, he knew that Dae had not gone with them, that he had to leave her in 1995 so she could arrange the message, and thereby avoid paradox—he hoped.

            Paradox had been avoided.  Dae had left her message, one of appreciation and, ultimately, love.  And Data was troubled despite Dae’s assurances of satisfaction with her life.

            It was a very subdued android who rejoined La Forge.  “So was it from Dae?” he asked eagerly.  At Data’s nod, he said, “Did she explain everything?  What did she say?”

            “She said…”  How to summarize it all?  “She said she loved me,” Data finally answered.

            La Forge squeezed his shoulder.  “It wasn’t how you expected it to be, was it?”

            Data shook his head.  “No.  No, it was not.”

            “Trust me, it never is.”  The dark man searched the crowd and said, “I see Jenna.  If you don’t mind, I’ll join her for a while.  You look like you need to be alone.”

            “But Geordi,” protested Data, “there are eighty-eight others in Ten-Forward besides ourselves.  How can I be alone if I remain here?”

            With another squeeze of the android’s shoulder, La Forge replied, “There are all kinds of ways of being alone, my friend.”

            Data recalled Dae’s journals.  “I am coming to realize that.”

            La Forge promised to come back in a few minutes and went to D’Sora’s side.  He hugged her, held her closer, and whispered his feelings in her ear as they watched the main table.  However long the relationship lasted, he wanted her to know how important she was to him.  After Data’s comments, it seemed a necessary thing.

            Data watched his friends enjoy themselves.  He knew Troi was being a “good sport,” honoring her bet though it caused her great personal discomfort.  Crusher appeared to find the feast somewhat more palatable, live gagh notwithstanding.  Worf was pleased, both with his recovery and with the outcome of the bet.

            Riker was nearby, as he usually was when the counselor was present.  In a way, the android had a better understanding of their relationship.  His own relationship with Dae was similar, having as it did components of greater intimacy than was the norm.

            The captain had made a short speech at the beginning of the party, congratulating Worf on his recovery, his return to duty, and his honorable victory in the wager (Troi had stifled a groan then, heard by none but Data).  He slipped away after a few minutes.  Data wondered why, since the whole crew held Picard in high esteem.  But having studied the captain for so long, he guessed at the reason—a need to maintain a professional detachment, a reserve, both to uphold discipline and give the crew a visible symbol of the organization and ideals they served.

            Data’s recent command of the _Sutherland_ had shown him the difficulties in gaining the respect of a crew.  “But how lonely he must be,” Data murmured in a flash of understanding.

            “Yes, yes, loneliness is one of the burdens of command,” drawled Q, popping into sight.  “But come, Data, we have an appointment.”  He raised his hand to snap his fingers.

            “What appointment is that?” demanded Riker.

            Q rolled his eyes.  “My dear, stolid, unimaginative, humorless Commander Riker.”  Riker bristled, though not as aesthetically as Dae.  “Data and I had a bet, too, something like the one Deanna and Beverly made with Microbrain.”  All friendliness evaporated.  “The stakes were _much_ higher than a bad meal.  And I think,” Q said with a hard gaze at Data, “that my professor of the humanities is ready to pay up.”  A flick of his graceful fingers and they vanished.

            Guinan sailed in bearing a tray of Thalasian chocolate mousse, the real thing, not replicated.  Worf had requested it for Crusher and Troi, as thanks for their help.  She came to an abrupt stop and the dishes slid to the very edge of the tray.  Troi breathed a relieved sigh when they stopped within a millimeter of falling.  “He was here, wasn’t he?” the bartender asked.  Riker nodded.  “My timing’s getting rusty,” she muttered as she served the dessert.

            For Troi, concern for Data battled with lust, and lust won for the moment.  “Not entirely, Guinan,” she said as she spooned up a mouthful of the rich, dark chocolate.  She had a feeling Data would be safe, but could not have explained why.

            Riker reported the new wrinkle to Picard as the party broke up and, off duty, stayed in Ten-Forward.  So did La Forge, though D’Sora told him he was welcome to drop by later.  Her understanding made his parting kiss more fervent.

            The ship was soon warping out of the Maledin system.  They had received a request for help from a species called the J’naii, who had lost a ship under inexplicable circumstances.  Picard said the officers in Ten-Forward would be called when needed.  They settled back to wait.

 

            Data found himself at the focal point of a black marble amphitheater so vast, the seating tiers rose out of his sight.  He saw only Q yet felt that the tiers held an increasing multitude, and he had an impression of many voices talking though the place was quiet as death.

            “Is this the Continuum, Q?” asked Data as he memorized the details.

            “Good heavens, no!” Q replied with a shudder.  “We’d never tolerate anything this tacky.  It’s a projection, the reality reduced to some gross level your intellect can tolerate without overloading your puny neural networks.”  Data, quite calm, returned his scathing look.  “Humph,” said Q.  “You’re not nearly as much fun to insult as Jean-Luc.  Oh, well, never mind,” he went on.  “I hope you’re ready.  After that last bit of drivel from your precious Dae, you ought to be.

            “My friends!” he called out in a penetrating voice, and the assemblage quieted.  At least, Data sensed quietness as he had sensed conversation earlier.  “Forgive my appearing in this primitive form,” and his gesture could have meant the uniform or the physical body it covered.  “But I take it in order to provide a measure of the familiar to our guest.

            “This is Data, a sentient mechanical construct built by a human in its own image.”  There was a general aura of distaste.  Data looked around in amazement as the opinions and reactions bypassed all his sensory inputs to imprint themselves directly on his positronic subprocessor.

            Q acquainted the other Q with the particulars of the wager, and with the stakes.  Tolerant amusement met the android’s audacity in thinking he could win, but there were emanations of caution, too—perhaps a reminder of Q’s failure with Riker.  The entity hurried on.

            “And so I bring him here to give us the results of his quest for humanity’s goodness.  Please, Data,” said Q in a beseeching voice, much at odds with the spark in his eyes.  “Enlighten us about the ‘goodness’ of the species you hold so dear.”  Q flourished a bow and vanished.

            The android constructed the framework of a speech, but soon gave up—somehow, he thought strictly logical arguments would fail.  Would an emotional appeal be more effective?  He did not know if the Q possessed emotions, nor if he could make such an appeal convincing.  He wondered how to synthesize all his friends had taught him into a plea these beings would accept.  Then came a memory of Dae, ready to fight for him, and he found his direction.

            “Members of the Q Continuum,” he began, “Q is correct if he claims that humans are often less than good.  And it is true that many of my experiences confirm this.  Humanity is not, nor has it ever been, perfectly good.”  He sensed an increase in attention; Q appeared in a far tier, wearing a smug grin.  “However, if it is not uniformly good, neither is it uniformly bad.

            “I often ponder this dichotomy.  But on the day Q came to me, it seemed there were more than the usual number of contradictory behavior patterns in my thoughts.  Q used this as proof that humans were evil and any semblance of good was, at best, a temporary aberration.”  A wave of approval enveloped Q and he glowed with a blue-white aura.

            “It is not true.”  An equally palpable wave of disbelief surrounded the android.  It had a dangerous edge.  Data ignored it.

            “I first attempted to quantitatively define the level of good in the society to which Q sent me.  When I returned to my ship and completed my calculations, I discovered something curious.”  After compiling the raw data and processing it through the most precise controls, the result was fifty percent.  He assumed he had made an error, so he ran it again.  He got the same answer.

            This prompted Data to experiment with, and ultimately rewrite, his program.  No matter what changes he made, the end result was the same—fifty percent.

            Data sensed he had their attention.  He was mildly relieved to be an android, since the mere presence of an unknown number of immortal, omnipotent beings would no doubt unnerve him were he human.  Even so, it was disconcerting.

            “Finally I realized what should have been obvious, that good and evil are not quantifiable.  Each person possesses a capacity for good and for evil, and there is no way to reason around that most basic truth.  Yet I must attempt to prove my assumption.

            “So I will, with your permission, tell you everything that happened to me in that place from the instant I found myself there.”  He paused and Q scowled.  “I will accept your judgment on my experiences, and abide by whatever decision you render.”  Q smiled again and the emanations became self-satisfied, as if the decision was only a formality.

            Data told the Q about the street people, and his rescue by Dae.  He spoke of their nascent friendship, her acceptance of his nature and willingness to help him pass as human in a possibly hostile society.  He spoke of the trials involved in forming friendships there, and of the problems, misunderstandings, and reconciliations that occurred.

            He spoke of the dangers posed by Max and how he dealt with them; how Dae’s behavior, and his own, contributed to that danger, and the wedge it drove between them.  He hesitated to mention Dae’s experiences with Kee, but it had affected her relationship with the android and Data thought it important, so he included it.

            He depicted how the world changed while he was there, the terrible things that happened, and the good as well, and he began to experience something new.  The Q seemed enthralled by his story.  Only the glower on Q’s face marred the sensation.

            The tale wound to its conclusion.  “My experiences have shown me,” Data ended, “that most humans behave in a manner that could be termed ‘good,’ or at least without evil intent.

            “True, there were those who acted malevolently—Max Sinclair, his aides, many of the Augments.  But for each ‘evil’ action, another occurred which was actively ‘good.’  Mr. Sinclair’s attempts to hold me captive were more than balanced by Dae’s helping me to escape.”

            _As you later did for her, daring the fire,_ said a choir of unheard voices, or was it only one voice that came straight into his mind?

            “It is my belief,” he said, “based on my observations not just during the test period Q imposed, but throughout my life, that humanity, as much evil as it has admittedly perpetrated, is nonetheless actively, and intentionally, inclined toward good rather than evil.”

            At that statement, Q protested in a fury.  “How can you possibly maintain such a misguided viewpoint in the face of all you’ve seen?”  He flickered out and showed up beside Data.  “That little missive from your ‘friend’ should have convinced you!”  Q faced the tiers, his voice taking on the same overtones as the assembled Q, and Data’s auditory subprocessors heard the voice as it echoed inside his head.  “It’s filled,” Q was saying, “with vituperation, anger, hatred, all the flaws for which humanity should be penned up—no, _quarantined!_

            “She hated you, you blind, ignorant, puppet!” taunted the entity.  The focused attention surrounded Q.  “He saved her life!  He gave her the chance to live when she should have died!  And she hated him for it!”  Approbation for the words pressed in around them.  He had the other Q convinced, or nearly so.

            “Q,” said Data, “you are misstating the facts by taking a few, a very few, remarks out of context.  I can, if you wish,” he offered to the invisible multitude, “repeat Dae’s journal entries, in her own voice.  But they are lengthy.  Shall I do so?”  An instant of doubt, then keen curiosity and agreement.  “Very well.”

            Word for word in the voice he knew so well, Data repeated all his dead friend’s journals.  Probing awareness assured him his audience listened.  Each phrase supporting Q’s assertions drew an inaudible cheer.  But a few entries later came the apology, the affection, and the cheers ceased.  Most of the entries were hopeful, and expressed a great deal of love for an android named Data.

            “If this has not proved my contention,” Data said when he finished, “if it has not at least shown your fellow Q’s assumptions to be”—it might be less than politic to accuse Q of outright lying—“somewhat inaccurate, then I will do what little I can to prepare humanity for your judgment.”  And having nothing more to say, he stood in the limitless space and waited.

            He stood immobile for half an hour, an hour, two, longer, body at ease, mind in a turmoil of activity.  Incomprehensible conversation surrounded him.  More and more attention fell on Q, who had moved a little apart from the android during his recounting of Dae’s final journal.

            And Q began to squirm.

            _You have failed, Q,_ said the chorused voices in Data’s head.  _Again._   Anger washed around their two figures, left the android untouched, and swirled in a dull red tide over Q.

            “No!  No, I haven’t!” he wailed in protest.  “He’s slanting things to make himself look good!”  Q’s desperate glance darted to the android, who watched with interest.

            “I don’t think so, Q,” said another voice, an actual voice.  Data spun and saw a tall blond man with a devious smile, wearing the sort of utility coverall Picard ordered for Q when the entity had appeared on the bridge sans powers—and clothing.  “When will you learn you can’t fool us?”  He made a disapproving cluck.  “We know Data’s told the truth.  You said yourself that he was the best one for the challenge because he couldn’t lie.  Face it, you made the wrong bet, and now you have to…”  He rounded on Data, who blinked.  “What’s that phrase your kind use?”

            “Pay the piper?  Face the music?  Take your lumps?” the android offered.

            “Personally,” the blond Q said, “I like the last one.  What do you think?”  There was a resounding cheer with undertones of mayhem in Data’s head.  “Time to take your lumps, Q!”

            A roaring noise, every river that ever ran, every earthquake, landslide, and cataclysm, all rolled into one single tone that shook the marble tiers to shards and twisted like a tornado towards Q.  The shattered tiers emptied into the whirlwind of sound.

            The red aura deepened around Q, glowing tendrils drawing out into the air and snapping back to writhe across his face and body.  Helpless against the combined power of the Continuum, he begged for mercy—and disappeared.  Everything disappeared.  Q, the relics of the amphitheater, the other Q, everything.  Data stood in a place bereft of sensation.

            Silent.

            Dark.

            Sterile nothingness.

            No light.  Not a lamp, not a star.  No sound except the whispers of his internal systems.  He snapped his fingers, felt them connect but did not hear the usual report, for no atmosphere carried the vibration.  He could perform the action of breathing, but no air passed his nostrils.

            A fragment of Genesis came to him.  _“And the earth was without form, and void.”_   Void.  Data wondered what had let the long-dead writer describe such a place so perfectly.

            Forgotten by the Q, Data was part of the void left by their passing, and wondered what would happen to him.  And for that matter, what would happen to Q.

            “Nothing bizarre,” said a voice behind him.  “Nothing grotesque.”

            Suddenly Data was _somewhere_ again.  He turned and saw the blond Q.  Sound and light and touch and scent returned as if this other Q carried them with him.  Which, for all Data knew, might be the case.  “Were your comments regarding me, sir, or Q?”

            “Q, of course,” said the second Q.  “He lost, so he has to pay, but he provided at least a little amusement to us.  We keep trying to tell him to be careful with you people, but he won’t listen.”  He sighed as if he bore a heavy burden.  “Why should he keep getting away with it?”

            “Ah.  ‘Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’”

            The entity looked at Data with admiration.  “That’s a very profound thought, coming from a member of such a limited species.”

            “It is a quotation from Carlos Santana, a human of Earth’s nineteenth century.”

            “Even more impressive,” admitted the Q.  “There may be hope for you after all.”  He looked around as if hearing something.  “Well, I have to get back, things are getting interesting.”  He began to glow and Data called him back.  “Yes, what is it?”

            “Could you return me to the _Enterprise_ , sir?” he asked.  “I know of no other way to return.  Especially from…here.”

            “Absolutely true,” the Q agreed.  “There isn’t one.”  He twitched an eyebrow and Data stood in the almost empty lounge.  Riker and La Forge stared as he appeared, and Guinan came out from behind the bar.

            “That was quick,” said the first officer.  “What happened, Q change his mind?”

            That meant the blond Q had taken liberties with the flow of time.  “It took longer for me than for you, Commander,” Data replied, “if you know what I mean.”

            The others traded glances and nodded.  “So what happened, Data?” asked La Forge.

            Data gazed at the friends who had waited for him as Riker notified Picard and the rest of his return.  Then he looked at the stars streaking past outside.  Memories filled him.  Dae might have just left the room, yet from a strictly temporal sense, she was long dead.  Data thought, if he tried hard enough, he might see her image in those stars.  _Was it worth it?_ he asked himself.  _Was the losing of her worth the knowing of her?  I miss her, so very much._   And he mourned her in his own unique way, as his father said he would, and sensed his own emptiness—an emptiness that was filled by the friends around him, the others who arrived in response to Riker’s summons, and the memories.

            When he faced his friends again, he smiled just a little.  “I believe,” Data said simply, “I won the bet.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in spring 1994 and finished my first draft in the fall of that year. And I've been revising ever since, as the mood struck me.
> 
> Originally, I intended to find an agent and submit the manuscript for publication, but I put it off so long that I figure it's now past its "sell-by" date, considering what's happened in the Trek universe since then. Recently introduced to the world of fanfic, I decided I might as well post it and see if anyone likes it! (Have to admit that my readers while I was working on the first couple of drafts said they enjoyed it, as well as providing me with excellent feedback.)
> 
> As part of my research, I had the honor of discussing makeup techniques with Michael Westmore in his office on the Paramount lot when he had a day off from filming _Star Trek: Generations_ , which was incredibly cool--especially considering the Data head and a model for he Oscar-winning makeup for 1985's _Mask_ staring down at us from his bookcase. Any errors regarding makeup, TV production and related topics are mine alone.
> 
> This takes place in what would be the series' fifth season, between the episodes "Ethics" and "The Outcast", and in a 1994 that I hope is consistent with Trek canon.


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